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LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 

E.    J.    LEAMAN 


<3**    »** 


V  ;CTORY  IN  DEFEAT 


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General  Alexieff,  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Russian  Army 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 


THE  AGONY  OF  WARSAW  AND  THE 
RUSSIAN  RETREAT 


BY 

STANLEY  WASHBURN 

Special  Correspondent  of  the  London  Times  with 
the  Russian  Armies  in  the  Field 


ILLUSTRATED 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
1916 


Copyright,  1916,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE    &   COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  languages, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


TO 
MY  WIFE 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The  first  sixteen  articles  which  appear  in  this 
little  volume  were  originally  produced  in  the 
Chicago  Tribune,  and  the  author  tenders  his 
thanks  for  permission  to  reprint  the  same  in 
book  form.  Chapter  17  is  reproduced  due 
to  the  courtesy  of  Harper's  Weekly,  and  thanks 
are  tendered  to  the  London  Times  for  the 
permission  to  republish  the  sketch  of  General 
Alexieff  which  appears  in  this  book  as  Chapter 
18. 

S.  W. 

Lakewood,  N.  J. 

March  4,  1916. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.     Foreword 3 

II.     The  Move  on  Warsaw  via  Galicia   .  12 

III.  The  Readjustment  in  Galicia     .      .  22 

IV.  Summation  of  the  Galician  Cam- 

paign       32 

V.     The  July  Movement  on  Warsaw 

From  the  South 41 

VI.     The  Drive  on  the  Chelm-Lublin 

Line 50 

VII.    Fighting  in  the  North    ....  61 

VIII.     The  Drive  on  the  Narew  Line    .      .  71 

IX.     The  Anguish  of  Warsaw .      ...  81 

X.     The  Last  Straw 91 

XI.     The  Fall  of  Warsaw 101 

XII.     Warsaw,  the  German  Zenith      .      .  114 

XIII.     The  Beginning  of  the  Retreat  and 

the  Political  Situation      .      .      .  122 
ix 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XIV.     The  Escape  From  Vilna        ...  131 

XV.     The  Defense  of  Petrograd     ...  139 

XVI.     Summary  of  the  Situation  to  No- 
vember 1,  1915 147 

XVII.     Russia — An  Empire   of  American 

Opportunity 156 

XVIII.     General  Alexieff 172 


x 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

General  Alexieff,  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Rus- 
sian Army    (half-tone)      .      .      .       Frontispiece 

MAPS 

General  map  showing  places  mentioned  in 
the  text page  xv 

FACING  PAGE 

Eastern  battle-lines  at  the  end  of  April,  1915 .        12 

Beginning  of  the  Teutonic  advance  in  Galicia, 
May  1,  1915 16 

Battle-lines,  May  23, 1915 28 

Railroad  lines  in  operation  in  August,  1914. 
Note  the  Teutonic  superiority  in  rail 
power 44 

The  Chelm-Lublin  line,  July,  1915      ...       54 

Closing  in  on  Warsaw,  July  28, 1915    ...       76 

The  Battle  of  Vilna— September  13-24, 1915 .      134 

The  winter  lines,  November,  1915      .      .      .      150 

xi 


INTRODUCTION 

This  little  volume  has  been  written  with  the 
intention  of  presenting  as  far  as  possible  at 
this  time,  and  within  the  information  avail- 
able to  the  writer,  the  Russian  side  of  the  great 
campaign  which  ended  in  the  capture  of  War- 
saw by  the  Germans,  and  was  followed  by  the 
great  Russian  retreat.  There  are  many  assets 
in  war  as  there  are  in  peace,  and  the  greatest 
among  these  is  character.  Efficiency,  prepa- 
ration, and  science  have  their  innings  at  the 
beginning  of  a  conflict,  but  the  one  enduring 
asset  which  a  nation  has  is  the  character  of  its 
people.  If  time  be  given  for  this  to  develop, 
then  the  end  is  certain.  The  great  crisis  in 
Russia  was  during  that  period  when  the  psy- 
chology of  the  nation  was  crystallizing,  and 
when  this  had  taken  place  the  danger  to  Russia 
was  largely  passed.  Certainly  I  would  in  no 
way  minimize  the  strength,  fortitude,  and 
patriotism  of  the  Germans,  which  have  been 

xiii 


INTRODUCTION 

extraordinary  from  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
but  I  am  still  of  the  opinion  that  the  greatest 
test  of  character  is  not  in  victory,  but  in 
defeat.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that  the  world 
has  not  appreciated  the  fact  that  there  can 
be  victory  in  defeat,  but  this  is  none  the  less 
true,  when,  as  has  happened  in  Russia,  re- 
verses have  provided  time  in  which  the  char- 
acter of  the  nation  has  asserted  itself,  and 
the  Empire  has  been  able  to  repair  its  lack  of 
vision  before  the  war  by  preparing  itself  after 
the  blow  has  fallen.  This  is  what  has  hap- 
pened in  the  Empire  of  the  Czar,  and  it  is  for 
this  reason  that  I  am  calling  this  little  book 
'Victory  in  Defeat,"  for  I  believe  that  the 
Russian  reverses  have  been  so  costly  and 
demoralizing  to  their  victors,  that  history  will 
judge  them  as  the  greatest  single  source  of  the 
German  downfall,  which  is  in  my  opinion  inev- 
itable whether  it  be  insixmonths  or  in  two  years. 

S.  W. 
Lakewood,  N.  J. 
March  1,  1916. 


XIV 


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VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 


FOREWORD 

The  Russian  campaign  has  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  been  one  of  great  and  sweep- 
ing movements  involving  huge  armies,  ad- 
vancing and  retreating,  sometimes  victorious, 
sometimes  defeated,  but  always  fighting  and 
never  demoralized  nor  discouraged.  There 
have  been  a  number  of  distinct  phases  in 
Russia  each  of  which  really  represents  a  small 
separate  war.  First  was  the  Russian  advance 
into  East  Prussia,  culminating  in  the  disaster 
of  Samsonov's  Army  at  Tanenberg  the  first 
month  of  the  war.  Following  this  was  the 
German  counter-attack  and  advance  into 
Russia  with  its  failure  to  advance  with  any 
depth,  and  subsequent  evaporation.     Simul- 

3 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

taneously  was  being  enacted  the  Russian 
campaign  in  Galicia  which  cleaned  the  Aus- 
trians  out  of  Galicia  and  advanced  the  armies 
of  the  Czar  to  the  very  walls  of  historic 
Cracow.  In  October,  1914,  in  Poland  itself 
was  the  phase  of  the  first  German  invasion  of 
Poland  which  took  the  Teutons  to  within  sight 
of  Warsaw  only  to  get  a  glimpse  of  their 
cherished  goal  before  they  were  forced  back  to 
their  own  frontier.  The  next  phase  was  the 
second  great  German  advance  in  Poland  with 
the  terrific  battles  around  Lodz  and  a  dozen 
heavy  battles  which  brought  them  by  Decem- 
ber up  to  the  famous  Bzura  line  in  Poland; 
there,  with  exhausted  momentum,  they  sank 
into  the  mud  and  snow  of  December.  For  a 
month  there  was  a  lull  along  the  Russian  front, 
when  in  latter  January  there  opened  a  new 
campaign,  beginning  on  the  Bolimov  position 
before  Warsaw,  with  seven  days  of  continuous 
German  attacks  which  it  was  hoped  would 
pierce  the  centre  of  the  Bzura  line  and  land  the 

4 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Teutons  in  the  capital  of  Poland.  Casualties 
involving  nearly  100,000  in  a  week  and  result- 
ing in  scarcely  a  dent  on  the  Russian  line  con- 
vinced the  Germans  that  this  was  a  hope  un- 
attainable, and  while  the  echoes  of  the  guns  on 
the  Polish  plain  were  still  in  the  air  they  began 
another  drive  in  East  Prussia  which  resulted 
in  heavy  Russian  losses  but  profited  the  Ger- 
mans little  but  the  gain  of  a  few  square  miles 
of  Russian  territory,  and  a  heavy  loss  of  Ger- 
man lives  with  no  commensurate  gain.  But 
the  Germans  were  not  discouraged,  and  the 
moment  it  became  obvious  that  the  Russian  re- 
treat in  East  Prussia  was  going  to  have  no 
great  strategic  value  to  them  they  at  once 
swung  south  from  Mlawa  toward  Przasnys  in 
an  endeavor  to  take  Warsaw  from  the  north 
by  cutting  the  line  between  the  Polish  Capital 
and  Petrograd.  Fighting  had  now  been  going 
forward  on  a  huge  scale  for  nearly  two  months, 
and  by  early  March  the  impetus  of  even  the 
Germans  was  beginning  to  flag  and  their  drive 

5 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

south  from  Mlawa  was  a  flat  failure,  resulting 
in  their  retirement  with  heavy  losses,  including 
nearly  15,000  prisoners.  By  April  1,  1915, 
it  became  clear  then,  that,  viewed  from  its 
larger  aspects,  the  German  campaign  against 
Russia  had  failed.  Territory  they  had  taken 
to  be  sure,  and  battles  they  had  won  in  large 
numbers,  but  the  centre  of  their  strategy,  War- 
saw, still  lay  as  far  from  their  grasp  as  in  De- 
cember, 1914,  and  the  Russian  Army  not  only 
was  not  demoralized  but  was  actually  getting 
stronger  each  day.  In  the  meantime  the 
armies  of  the  Czar  were  steadily  winning  their 
way  through  the  Carpathians  and  in  general 
having  things  their  own  way  in  Galicia.  Al- 
most on  the  heels  of  the  German  failures  to 
get  results  around  Warsaw  in  March  came  the 
collapse  of  Przemysl  and  the  surrender  of 
135,000  Austrians.  Thus  we  find  that  by 
April  1,  1915,  the  Germans  after  terrific 
losses  and  sustained  fighting  of  months  had 
accomplished  comparatively  little,  while  the 

6 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Russians,  in  spite  of  reverses,  were  gaining 
ground  steadily  against  Austria.  The  fall 
of  Przernysl  came  at  a  time  when  the  Russian 
armies  in  the  southeast  were  sweeping  steadily 
ahead  in  the  Bukowina,  driving  the  Hungari- 
ans and  Austrians  headlong  toward  the  great 
Hungarian  plain.  The  result  of  the  German 
failure  in  the  north  plus  the  Russian  successes 
in  the  south  was  having  the  most  disastrous 
effect  imaginable  on  the  soldiers  of  the  Dual 
Alliance.  Hungary,  seeing  a  direct  menace  on 
Buda-Pesthe,  both  from  the  Bukowina  and  the 
passes  of  the  Carpathians,  became  dissatisfied 
and  began  to  show  signs  of  consideration  of  a 
separate  peace.  General  Ivanov  himself,  who 
was  in  command  of  all  the  Russian  armies  in 
Galicia,  told  me  that  the  situation  in  Austria- 
Hungary  was  becoming  so  acute  that  there 
was  every  probability  that  unless  some  step 
were  taken  by  Germany  and  taken  quickly, 
that  the  Empire  of  the  Kaiser  faced  the  pos- 
sibility of  the  complete  collapse  of  his  Allies. 

7 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

It  became  obvious  to  all  then  in  April  that  if  the 
Kaiser  was  to  protect  his  "heel  of  Achilles"  in 
Silesia  he  must  do  something  to  bolster  up  the 
Austrians  and  Hungarians,  who  showed  only 
too  clearly  their  anxiety  to  quit.  Probably 
the  politicians  and  diplomats  at  Vienna  never 
shared  this  desire,  but  that  the  troops  at  the 
front  were  ready  to  make  peace  was  perfectly 
clear.  I  was  told  by  an  authority  whose 
credibility  I  cannot  question  that  when  the 
news  of  the  fall  of  Przemysl  reached  the  Aus- 
trians on  the  summit  of  the  Carpathians  they 
threw  their  hats  in  the  air  and  shouted :  ' '  Hur- 
rah! Now  we  will  have  peace!"  This  situ- 
ation then,  plus  the  fact  that  Italy  was  hang- 
ing on  the  brink  of  the  war,  was  undoubtedly 
responsible  for  the  program  of  the  Germans 
which  began  with  the  drive  in  Galicia  and  the 
subsequent  campaign  which  resulted  in  the 
capture  of  Warsaw.  This  movement  began 
in  early  May  and  the  operations  since  then  fall 
into  three  distinct  phases.     First,  the  Galician 

8 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

drive  which  aimed  to  restore  the  morale  of  the 
Austro-Hungarian  troops,  to  check  Italy  from 
entering  the  war,  and  which  contemplated  the 
destruction  of  the  Russian  Army.  The  Ger- 
mans, never  lacking  in  foresight,  no  doubt 
figured  that  in  any  event,  even  if  they  failed  to 
demoralize  or  annihilate  the  Russian  Army, 
the  reoccupation  of  Galicia  would  leave 
them  on  the  flank  of  Warsaw  and  give  them 
the  chance  to  attack  the  Polish  salient  from 
the  south.  The  second  phase  extended  from 
the  occupation  of  Lwow  (Lemberg)  to  the 
capture  of  Warsaw,  including  the  terrific 
fighting  on  the  Chelm-Lublin  and  Narew  line. 
The  third  phase  represents  the  retreat  from 
Warsaw  and  brings  us  practically  up  to  No- 
vember 1,  1915,  when  it  became  obvious  that 
the  entire  German  line  had  come  to  a  final 
stand  and  that  its  momentum  was  lost,  prob- 
ably for  the  winter,  and  certainly  for  the  fall. 
It  is  my  purpose  to  sketch  as  briefly  as  pos- 
sible  the   operations   of   the   Russian   Army 

9 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

from  May  1st  until  November  1st.  In  order 
that  the  conditions  precedent  may  be  clear  it 
has  seemed  wise  to  trace  the  earlier  opera- 
tions briefly  as  in  the  foregoing  paragraphs,  so 
as  to  refreshen  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  the 
conditions  that  existed  in  May  when  the  Ger- 
mans began  their  greatest  campaign  against 
Russia.  The  writer  was  with  the  Russian 
armies  in  the  field  from  October,  1914,  until 
November  1,  1915.  During  this  time  he  was 
in  all  of  their  active  armies  except  one,  covered 
some  10,000  miles  of  country  ranging  from 
the  Bukowina  to  the  Baltic,  was  at  the  po- 
sitions in  scores  of  places,  and  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Robert  R.  McCormick  and  the 
brilliant  American  Military  Attache,  Lieut. 
Sherman  Miles,  was  the  only  American  to 
have  any  considerable  access  to  the  fighting 
lines  in  Russia.  It  is  quite  true  that  constant 
association  with  an  army  tends  to  prejudice 
one  in  its  favor,  and  it  is  equally  true  that  in 
operations  on  so  vast  a  scale  and  associated 

10 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

with  such  chaos  and  confusion  it  is  difficult  to 
secure  any  exact  perspective.  The  story  of 
these  movements  and  operations  may  be  and 
probably  is  inaccurate  in  part,  for  it  is  im- 
possible at  this  time  to  secure  the  data  neces- 
sary to  write  history,  but  within  his  sources 
of  information  and  with  the  sincere  intention 
of  being  absolutely  fair  to  the  enemy  the  writer 
submits  herewith  the  account  of  this  great 
campaign  as  it  has  seemed  to  those  on  the 
Russian  side  of  the  conflict. 


11 


II 

THE  MOVE  ON  WARSAW  VIA  GALICIA 

The  Russian  line  in  Galicia  early  in  May 
ran  in  a  general  way  along  the  banks  of  the 
Dunajec-Ropa-Biala  rivers,  extending  roughly 
from  the  Vistula  southerly  to  the  spurs  of  the 
Carpathians,  through  which  the  Army  of 
Brussilov  based  on  Dukla  was  working  its 
way  satisfactorily  through  the  famous  Dukla 
Pass.  To  understand  the  situation  of  the 
Russians  it  must  be  realized  that  already  the 
armies  of  the  Czar  were  beginning  to  feel  the 
pinch  of  a  shortage  in  ammunition  and  in  mis- 
cellaneous material  of  war.  The  reason  for 
this  lack  of  munitions,  especially  shells,  was 
not  due  entirely  to  incompetence  and  corrup- 
tion, though  undoubtedly  glaring  defects  in 
the  Petrograd  Bureaucracy  played  their  part, 

12 


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Eastern  battle-lines  at  the  end  of  April,  1915 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

but  rather  to  the  fact  that  the  Russians  as  well 
as  every  other  belligerent  save  Germany  had 
completely  underestimated  the  quantities  of 
material  that  modern  conditions  would  make 
necessary.  The  War  Office  no  doubt  planned 
their  reserves  in  shells  based  on  their  Manchur- 
ian  experiences,  when  this  war  has  shown  that 
nearly  ten  times  the  amounts  have  been  used. 
This  is  probably  due  in  large  part  to  the  fact 
that  the  new  Russian  field  gun  is  a  genuine 
quick-firer  with  a  theoretical  speed  of  more 
than  twenty  shots  a  minute.  In  the  early 
stages  of  the  war  I  knew  of  one  battery  that- 
fired  5%5  rounds  of  ammunition  per  gun  in  a 
single  day,  and  by  spring  the  pinch  was  al- 
ready being  felt.  Russia  is  not  a  highly  in- 
dustrial country,  and  even  when  she  mobilized 
such  assets  as  she  had,  she  could  not  begin  to 
feed  her  guns.  Shut  off  from  the  short  and 
convenient  routes  to  the  outside  world,  she 
found  that  even  when  material  ordered  could 
be  shipped  her,  it  must  still  be  long  and  weary 

13 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

weeks  before  it  could  reach  the  firing  line. 
So  it  was  that  early  in  May  she  faced  the 
enemy  lines  in  Galicia  with  the  realization  of 
this  problem  just  dawning  on  those  in  author- 
ity. On  the  line  from  the  Vistula  to  the  Car- 
pathians stood  the  famous  Third  Russian 
Army,  commanded  by  the  Bulgarian  Radko 
Dimitrieff,  who  had  won  fame  in  the  Balkan 
campaign  as  a  military  commander.  In  his 
front  line  and  immediate  reserve  he  had  five 
army  corps,  or  somewhere  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  200,000  troops,  for  the  corps  were  at 
that  time  fairly  well  filled  up  from  earlier 
losses. 

The  lines  running  west  of  Tarnov  and 
before  Gorlica  had  been  approximately  sta- 
tionary for  several  months,  during  which  time 
the  enemy  had  been  practising  with  their  artil- 
lery at  least  twice  a  day,  with  the  result  that  on 
this  entire  front  the  batteries  had  the  range 
within  a  few  feet  of  practically  every  conspic- 
uous object  in  the  landscape  which  was  within 

14 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

their  line  of  vision,  while  every  turn  and  twist  of 
the  Russian  trenches  had  been  verified  and 
mapped  by  the  enemy  aeroplanes,  and  ranges 
ascertained  almost  to  the  inch.  Along  toward 
the  end  of  April  the  Russian  flyers  became 
aware  of  the  concentration  of  troops  and  mate- 
rial in  the  theatre  of  operations  west  of  Tarnov. 
Many  people  have  asked  me  why  the  Russians 
did  not  meet  it  on  the  same  scale.  The  answer  is 
simple.  Though  the  Russians  have  millions  of 
men  and  even  plenty  in  uniform  and  under 
training,  they  did  not  have  the  rifles  to  put  in 
their  hands  nor  the  guns  and  shells  which  should 
give  them  support.  In  addition  the  Russian 
railroad  systems  were  in  no  way  comparable, 
strategically,  to  those  of  the  Germans  and 
Austrians,  and  they  could  not  fling  masses  of 
troops  about  from  one  quarter  of  the  empire 
to  another  as  the  Germans  have  been  able  to 
do.  Besides  this,  the  Russian  front  extending 
from  the  Baltic  to  the  Bukowina  had  already 
absorbed    the   greater   part   of   the   Russian 

15 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

effectives  and  they  could  not  easily  increase 
their  strength  on  the  Dunajec  without  rob- 
bing the  even  more  important  Warsaw  or 
Courland  fronts,  on  both  of  which  the  enemy 
were  not  entirely  inactive.  What  happened 
on  the  Dunajec  line  was  the  first  of  the  great 
German  artillery  drives.  I  cannot,  of  course, 
verify  the  statements  as  to  numbers  of  the 
enemy,  but  I  give  here  the  figures  as  estimated 
by  the  Russians.  In  addition  to  a  number  of 
Austrian  corps  already  on  the  Galician  line, 
the  Germans  sent  at  least  six  new  corps  for 
the  first  blow,  while  some  place  the  number 
as  high  as  ten.  The  sector  chosen  for 
attack  was  that  lying  from  Tarnov  toward 
Gorlica.  The  Russian  observers  quickly  de- 
tected during  the  last  days  of  April  the 
hitherto  unheard  of  concentration  of  guns 
which  they  estimated  to  be  2,000  in  number 
on  a  front  of  forty  miles.  These  guns  were 
said  to  be  grouped  in  tiers,  one  battery  behind 
another,  the  heaviest  being  in  the  rear.     The 

16 


Beginning  of  the  Teutonic  advance  in  Galicia,  May  1,  1915 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

sizes  ranged  all  the  way  from  the  regular  field 
artillery  up  to  the  heavy  Austrian  siege  guns. 
It  was  claimed  by  the  Russians  that  in  this  host 
of  guns  there  were  200  of  eight  inches  or  better. 
Probably  the  largest  were  the  Austrian  12- 
inch  Skoda  howitzers.  There  was  little  that 
the  Russians  could  do  to  guard  against  this 
impending  avalanche  save  to  wait  patiently 
for  the  storm  to  break  and  do  their  best  to 
outlive  the  fury  of  shell  and  machine-gun  fire 
with  the  hope  that  they  could  then  repel  the  in- 
fantry attacks  which  were  sure  to  follow.  The 
storm  broke  on  a  front  of  forty  miles  which 
was  held  by  three  corps,  the  more  particular 
designation  of  which  does  not  help  this  story. 
In  two  hours  the  enemy  batteries  fired,  ac- 
cording to  the  Russian  estimates,  700,000  shells 
ranging  from  the  field  shrapnel  up  to  the  12- 
inch  high  explosives.  The  Russians  were 
not  routed,  as  the  Germans  asserted,  at  all. 
They  simply  remained  and  died.  The  few 
that  tried  to  retire  on  supporting  lines  were 

17 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

caught  in  the  open,  where  every  object  on  the 
landscape  had  been  ranged  on  exactly,  long 
before,  and  thousands  more  were  literally 
swept  away.  The  first  line  of  the  Russian 
defense  was  so  torn  and  swept  by  shell  fire 
that  observers  say  that  it  could  not  have  been 
recognized  as  ever  having  been  a  line  of 
defense  at  all.  But  in  spite  of  the  fury  of  the 
first  two  hours  the  Russians  did  not  then 
abandon  their  lines.  We  are  told  that  it  took 
between  three  and  four  million  shells  finally 
to  weaken  them  so  that  the  infantry  could 
attack.  I  have  no  figures  obtainable  to  indi- 
cate what  portion  of  the  losses  were  killed, 
what  portion  wounded,  or  what  part  strayed 
and  were  taken  prisoners.  I  do  know  this, 
however,  that  when  the  fragments  of  the  three 
centre  corps  which  had  numbered  120,000  at 
the  beginning  were  finally  pulled  together  on 
the  San,  100  miles  or  so  in  the  rear,  two  weeks 
later,  the  total  strength  that  rallied  around  the 
colors  did  not  exceed  12,000. 

18 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

The  result  of  this  terrific  fusillade,  in  plain 
language,  was  to  leave  a  gap  in  the  Russian 
line  forty  miles  across,  and  through  this 
the  Germans  and  Austrians  poured  like  a  leak 
in  the  dyke.  Hurriedly  rushed-up  reserves 
taken  from  where  they  could  be  spared  fought 
a  rear-guard  action  of  sorts,  destroying  rail- 
roads and  bridges,  so  that  the  German  advance 
was  slowed  down  to  not  more  than  three  or 
four  miles  a  day. 

The  flanking  corps  to  the  north  and  south 
of  the  gap  fell  back  fighting  steadfastly  against 
the  terrific  odds,  but  as  far  as  I  know  were  not 
broken.  The  capture  of  Gorlica  and  the  ad- 
vance on  Dukla  threatened  the  line  of  com- 
munications of  the  Eighth  Army  that  was 
well  over  the  summit  of  the  Carpathians. 
The  Germans,  no  doubt,  figured  on  bagging  this 
entire  army,  which  indeed  they  might  have 
done  but  for  the  skill  and  brilliancy  with  which 
Brussilov  pulled  his  men  out  of  the  Passes. 
In  spite  of  all  haste  one  division  was  cut  off 

19 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

as  it  came  out,  though  it  succeeded  in  cutting 
its  way  through  the  enemy  and  rejoining  the 
main  body  now  falling  back  on  Przemysl. 
In  the  meantime  the  Russians  were  furiously 
preparing  for  a  stand  on  the  San,  and  to  gain 
time  threw  against  the  advancing  German 
hosts  several  corps,  among  which  was  the  fa- 
mous Third  Caucasian,  which  not  only  stopped 
the  advance  for  several  days  but  actually 
advanced  ten  miles  into  the  German  centre 
before  it  was  brought  to  a  standstill.  The 
other  armies  had  been  extending  their  flanks 
as  they  fell  back,  and  by  the  time  the  enemy 
reached  the  San  they  found  the  forty -mile  gap 
closed  up  and  much  to  their  surprise,  no  doubt, 
saw  they  were  again  confronting  a  solid 
Russian  line,  already  fairly  well  dug  in  on  the 
San  line  of  defense.  This  ended  the  first 
phase  of  the  Galician  drive.  To  one  who 
knows  the  true  situation  the  wonder  is,  not 
that  the  Germans  advanced,  but  that  they 
did    not    annihilate    the    Russian    Army    in 

20 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Galicia.  But  their  chance  had  gone,  and 
though  they  had  recaptured  for  Austria  a 
large  area  and  had  killed  and  bagged  a  large 
number  of  Russians,  the  big  game  had  slipped 
through  their  fingers  and  the  primary  object 
of  the  blow,  i.  e.,  the  destruction  of  the  Russian 
Army,  had  failed. 


21 


Ill 

THE  READJUSTMENT  IX  GALICIA 

In  the  modern  warfare,  with  its  huge  ex- 
tended fronts,  there  develops  in  every  theatre 
of  operations  what  might  be  called  the  key- 
stone of  the  strategy  therein.     The  breaking 
of  a  certain  line  on  a  large  scale  results  in  the 
pulling  out  of  the  keystone  of  the  arch  and  re- 
sulting chaos  in  the  whole  line,  though  it  may 
be  that  but  a  single  army  of  many  has  been 
seriously   crippled   in   itself.     This  is   exactly 
what  took  place  in  Galicia.     At  the  inception 
of  the  movement  the  three  centre  corps  of  the 
Third  Army,  as  already  mentioned,  were  prac- 
tically wiped  out  and  the  whole  Galician  line 
thrown  into  oscillation.     The  one  sector  being 
broken  and  the  one  army  being  thrown  back 
necessitated  changes  in  the  whole  front,  even 

00 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

from  Warsaw  to  the  Bukowina.  The  army  of 
General  Ewarts  (the  Fourth)  which  had  been 
standing  defiantly  for  months  just  north  of 
the  Vistula  on  the  Xida  River,  found  with 
the  retreat  of  its  southern  neighbor,  that  its 
flank  was  dangerously  uncovered.  It  was 
obvious  instantly  that  for  the  salvation  of  the 
whole  line  the  corps  of  Ewarts  (then  four  in 
number)  must  commence  a  retirement  which 
would  always  keep  the  flanking  corps  in  touch 
with  the  nearest  corps  of  the  army  to  its  left. 
So  immediately  after  the  Galician  drive 
Ewarts  began  to  fall  regretfully  back  in  what 
one  might  call  a  sympathetic  movement.  As 
I  was  in  this  army  several  times  during  this 
movement  I  can  speak  with  some  degree  of 
accuracy  of  what  the  Germans  advertised  as  a 
rout.  I  have  been  in  all  of  Ewarts'  Fourth 
Army  Corps  except  one  and  have  talked  with 
officers  and  men  from  all  of  these  units.  There 
was  not  one  but  insisted  that  this  army  not 
only  was  not  compelled  by  any  local  situation  to 

23 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

retreat,  but  that  had  it  been  operating  without 
any  connection  with  the  line  as  a  whole,  it  could 
actually  have  advanced.  It  is  too  late  in  the 
war  to  go  in  for  a  detailed  discussion  of  the  tac- 
tics of  Ewarts'  retreat,  which  is  stale  history 
now.  Suffice  it  to  say,  however,  that  while  the 
Fourth  Army  was  changing  its  front  to  a  more 
easterly  position  two  of  its  corps  alone  ac- 
counted for  more  than  25,000  German  and 
Austrian  casualties  and  prisoners,  with  a  loss  to 
themselves  of  less  than  half  that  amount. 
The  Germans  who  rushed  on  with  the  idea 
that  the  road  to  Moscow  lay  open  before  them 
kept  running  into  the  rear  guards  of  Ewarts, 
who  were  literally  being  dragged  back  by  a 
leash  due  to  orders  of  the  Great  General  Staff, 
and  at  every  contact  the  Russians,  regardless  of 
orders,  broke  loose  and  landed  blow  after 
blow  on  the  Germans  and  Austrians,  first  in 
one  place  and  then  in  another.  So  much,  then, 
may  be  said  for  the  "rout"  of  Ewarts.  The 
Third  Army,  standing  on  the  ill-fated  line  of 

24 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

the  Dunajec,  was,  as  I  have  described,  practi- 
cally wiped  out,  and  its  disaster  was  responsi- 
ble for  the  whole  retreat.  The  next  army  was 
the  Eighth,  commanded  by  the  dashing 
cavalry  officer,  Brussilov,  who  never  until 
this  time  had  been  obliged  to  retire.  This 
army  was  caught  halfway  through  the  Passes 
of  the  Carpathians,  and  in  the  disaster  of  its 
northern  neighbor  its  right  flank  was  exposed 
and  badly  crumbled,  but,  by  extending  its 
front  to  the  north  and  pulling  together  at 
Przemysl,  it  was  able  to  check  the  momentum 
of  the  onrushing  Germans  on  the  San.  We 
are  invited  to  believe  by  the  Central  Powers 
that  the  San  battle  was  a  pitched  one  and  that 
both  that  and  the  ones  that  followed  on  the 
old  Grodek  line  and  around  Lwow  were  great 
victories.  The  facts  of  the  case  are,  and  I 
speak  with  the  authority  of  the  highest  com- 
mand in  Galicia,  that  from  the  first  day's 
fighting  on  the  San  it  was  decided  by  the  Rus- 
sians practically  to  give  up  Galicia  for  the 

25 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

moment.  The  Germans  and  Austrians  were 
receiving  reinforcements  hourly,  and  a  definite 
stand  at  any  point  meant  a  combat  under  con- 
ditions favorable  to  the  Germans  and  an  invi- 
tation to  them  to  deliver  a  crushing  blow.  The 
want  of  ammunition  had  now  become  acute, 
and  I  know  of  certain  Russian  batteries  on  the 
San  at  this  time  that  had  not  above  a  score 
of  rounds  of  ammunition  to  the  gun.  Przemysl 
was  not  in  a  state  of  defense,  as  repairs  on  the 
works  destroyed  by  the  Austrians  before  the 
surrender  to  the  Russians  in  March  had  not 
yet  been  completed.  Holding  Przemysl,  then, 
was  like  trying  to  hold  a  ruin,  and  when  the 
Germans  began  to  bring  up  their  heavy  guns 
the  holding  of  the  fortress  was  not  even  con- 
sidered by  the  Russian  higher  command.  Re- 
inforcements were  not  available  to  the  Mus- 
covites on  an  important  scale,  while  the  whole 
railroad  system  of  Germany  was  working  over- 
time that  the  Galician  blow  might  not  falter. 
One  in  Germany  at  this  time  stated  that  for 

26 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

days  on  end  the  railroad  lines  of  Eastern  Ger- 
many were  flooded  with  troops  moving  east- 
ward and  wounded  coming  back  from  Galicia. 
This  witness  stated  that  for  the  three  con- 
secutive days  in  which  he  had  opportunity 
to  make  observations,  there  was  a  double- 
headed  train  passing  eastward  every  fifteen 
minutes  loaded  to  the  roof  with  troops  and 
munitions.  The  Russian  information  brought 
the  same  news.  It  was  quite  obvious,  then, 
that  it  was  the  Russian  policy  to  withdraw, 
fighting  a  rear-guard  action,  and  inflicting  the 
biggest  loss  that  they  could  get  without  risking 
their  army  to  a  crushing  defeat.  From  the 
San  until  the  present  writing  the  Galician 
armies  have  never  been  seriously  endangered. 
The  Dunajec  drive,  as  I  have  shown,  was  the 
result  of  the  enormous  concentration  of  artillery 
and  months  of  practice  preceding  it,  which  had 
secured  the  accurate  ranges.  Neither  on  the 
San  nor  at  any  other  point  did  the  Germans 
have  the  opportunity  to  bring  up  any  such  mass 

27 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

of  guns.  As  soon  as  their  concentrations,  look- 
ing toward  a  repetition  of  the  early  May  move- 
ment, began  to  gather  head,  the  Russians  re- 
tired. It  was  evident  that  the  balance  would 
come  sooner  or  later,  when  the  lengthened  Ger- 
man lines  and  the  shortened  Russian  communi- 
cations would  adjust  the  scales  and  bring  the 
whole  line  to  a  standstill  once  more.  Thus  it  was 
that  the  Russians  held  Przemysl  and  the  San 
line  for  a  while  and  took  a  large  toll  of  cas- 
ualties from  the  enemy,  and  just  as  they  were 
in  a  position  to  be  rushed,  evacuated  it  only  to 
make  a  second  stand  on  the  so-called  Grodek 
line,  the  scene  of  the  Austrian  defeat  of  the 
preceding  September  campaign.  When  the 
Germans  had  massed  their  formations  and 
artillery  for  a  crushing  blow  on  this  line,  the 
Russians  fell  back  on  Lwow,  and  after  repeat- 
ing their  tactics  before  the  Galician  capital, 
again  retired  to  the  so-called  Krasne  line, 
where  they  remained  for  several  months, 
having  safely  eluded  the  momentum  of  the 

28 


^DRESDEN 


OPRAGUE 


AUSTRIA         HUNGARY 


JVIENNA 


NADW0RNA°O~n?rr-   „ 
°  0  0  CLV 
C2ERN0WTTZ  » 


Battle-lines,  May  23,  191,5 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

main  German  blow.  In  the  meantime  there 
had  been  two  other  armies  to  the  east  en- 
gaged in  this  movement.  The  neighbor  of 
Brussilov  was  the  Eleventh  Army,  which  retired 
from  its  advanced  Carpathian  position  from 
which  it  was  threatening  the  Hungarian  plain 
to  the  Dneister  River,  then  to  the  Gnita  Lippa 
position,  and  later  to  the  Ztota  Lippa  and  a 
little  farther  east  to  what  is  approximately  its 
position  to-day.  This  army  was  widely  ad- 
vertised as  a  ruined  and  routed  organization. 
The  commander  told  me  himself  that  in  the 
six  weeks  of  his  retreat  his  army  had  taken 
more  than  56,000  enemy  prisoners,  not  to 
speak  of  the  losses  he  inflicted  in  killed  and 
wounded.  That  he  lost  heavily  in  stragglers 
and  casualties  of  his  own  is  probably  true,  but 
the  loss  he  inflicted  was  without  doubt  greater 
than  his  own.  His  neighbor  army  to  the 
eastward  was  the  Ninth.  I  spent  a  week 
in  this  army  during  the  last  days  of  the  re- 
treat and  was  at  the  positions  in  many  places. 

29 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Every  man  I  talked  with  denied  that  this 
army  had  been  defeated  locally,  and  without 
exception  every  officer  I  talked  with  stated  em- 
phatically that  it  could  advance  any  day  against 
its  own  enemy  but  for  the  orders  of  the  higher 
command.  This  forced  it  to  retreat  to  keep 
in  touch  with  the  Eleventh,  which  (as  I  have 
shown)  came  back  to  be  in  touch  with  the 
Eighth,  whose  flank  in  turn  had  been  exposed  by 
the  destruction  of  the  Third  Army,  the  keystone 
of  the  whole  line.  I  am  inclined  to  take  the 
statements  made  me  in  the  Ninth  Army,  be- 
cause the  records  show  that  it  was  actually 
advancing  daily  in  the  Bukowina  theatre  of 
operations  for  eight  or  ten  days  after  the  Ger- 
mans were  driving  through  in  Western  Ga- 
licia.  The  news  of  the  first  week  in  January, 
1916,  from  the  Russian  front  shows  the  ca- 
pacity of  this  army  which  has  been  bearing  the 
brunt  of  the  fighting  on  the  recent  Russian  of- 
fensive and  indicates  that  the  assertions  made 
to  me  in  July  were  not  ill-founded;  for  the  mo- 

30 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

ment  the  higher  command  unleashed  this  army 
it  at  once  poured  back  into  the  very  theatre  of 
operations  from  which  it  had  retired  last  sum- 
mer. In  regard  to  the  assertions  of  the  num- 
ber of  prisoners  taken  I  must  admit  that  these 
were  obtained  from  Russian  sources  which 
naturally  never  minimize  their  own  prowess. 
I  am  inclined  to  accept  it  at  par,  however,  due 
to  the  fact  that  I  personally  saw  over  6,000 
prisoners  in  three  days  taken  during  the  re- 
treat toward  Tarnopol  in  early  July  from  the 
scene  of  the  fighting  around  the  Gnita  and 
Ztota  Lippa,  both  of  which,  by  the  way,  were 
heralded  in  the  German  press  as  great  Austro- 
German  victories. 


31 


IV 
SUMMATION  OF  THE  GALICIAN  CAMPAIGN 

Sufficient  time  has  elapsed  since  the  great 
German  drive  in  Galicia  to  get  a  fair  perspec- 
tive of  exactly  what  it  represented  to  the 
German  cause  and  what  effect  it  had  on  the 
Russian  fortunes.  As  I  have  said  before,  the 
objects  of  the  campaign  were  manifold  and 
were    perhaps    important    in    the    following 

order:  First,  to  brace  up  the  Austrians  and 
Hungarians  and  thus  check  the  possibility 
of  decay  of  the  Dual  Alliance.  Second,  to 
create  sufficient  moral  impression  on  the 
world  at  large  by  the  glamour  of  success  to 
keep  Italy  from  entering  the  war.  The  third 
aim  was  distinctly  a  military  one,  and  that  was 
to  destroy  the  Russian  Army  in  Galicia  on 
such  a  scale  as  to  force  Russia  to  begin  the 

32 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

contemplation  of  a  separate  peace.  The  last 
object,  and  the  most  farseeing,  was  to  create 
a  strategic  situation  which,  even  if  all  others 
failed,  would  leave  the  Germans  in  a  position 
in  Galicia  which  would  pave  their  way  toward 
an  attack  on  Warsaw — always  their  greatest 
eastern  objective — from  the  south. 

Let  us  consider,  in  the  light  of  subsequent 
events,  the  extent  to  which  they  realized  their 
aspirations.  There  is  no  question  but  that 
the  sweeping  successes  and  recapture  of  Ga- 
licia absolutely  checked  the  danger  of  Austria 
or  Hungary  being  teased  into  any  separate 
peace,  or  even  listening  to  arguments  against 
the  war.  The  restoration  of  Galicia  gave  the 
Dual  Monarchy  a  new  lease  of  life  and  the 
court  and  political  military  in  Vienna  some- 
thing to  talk  about  except  defeats.  The 
effect,  however,  on  the  morale  of  the  soldiers 
at  the  front  was  far  from  what  was  hoped. 
I  was  told  in  early  July  by  the  highest  com- 
mand in  Galicia  that  the  morale  of  the  Austrian 

33 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

soldiers  had  been  falling  steadily  since  the 
recapture  of  Przemysl.  This  seemed  to  me  at 
the  time  to  be  quite  illogical  and  entirely 
improbable.  But  in  the  succeeding  weeks 
I  visited  every  army  in  Ivanov's  group,  and 
saw  and  talked  with  many  prisoners  and  with 
dozens  of  the  Russian  officers  whose  duty  it 
was  to  cross-examine  the  captured  prisoners. 
The  point  of  view  of  the  man  in  the  trench 
was  this :  '  We  entered  this  war  with  a  mod- 
erate amount  of  enthusiasm  because  we  love 
the  Emperor  Franz  Joseph  and  are  loyal  to 
our  country.  During  the  first  part  of  the  war 
we  fought  as  hard  and  bravely  as  we  could. 
The  Russians  beat  us  in  front  of  Lemberg  and 
took  the  capital  of  Galicia.  We  stood  again 
and  fought  on  the  Grodek  line.  We  lost  hor- 
ribly and  were  again  defeated.  The  Russians, 
who  care  nothing  for  their  own  losses,  drove  us 
back  to  the  Carpathians  and  then  over  them. 
We  lost  Przemysl.  We  were  fairly  beaten. 
We  were  sorry,  but  we  had  done  the  best  we 

34 


VICTORY  IN  DEPEAT 

could.  Anyway,  Galicia  is  not  absolutely 
necessary  to  us.  After  the  loss  of  Przemysl, 
we  thought  there  would  be  peace  and  that  we 
would  go  home  to  our  families.  Then  the 
Germans  came  down  here.  We  are  not  very 
keen  about  them  anyway,  as  they  lord  it  over 
us,  and  their  common  soldiers  do  not  conceal 
the  fact  that  they  hold  us  in  contempt.  The 
Germans  took  back  Przemysl  for  us  and  then 
Lwow  (Lemberg)  and  have  driven  the  Rus- 
sians practically  out  of  Galicia.  That  part  is 
very  nice,  but  if  the  war  goes  on  a  long  time 
— and  now  it  looks  as  though  it  would — the 
Germans  will  ultimately  have  to  take  their 
troops  back  to  fight  the  French  and  the  Eng- 
lish or  the  Russians  in  the  north.  Then  we 
will  be  left  alone.  The  Russians  will  attack 
again.  Our  officers  will  make  us  fight  for 
Lemberg.  Again  we  will  be  defeated  by  the 
Russians,  and  our  losses  will  be  even  worse 
than  before.  We  will  have  to  fight  again  on 
the  Grodek  line,  and  again  we  will  be  driven 

35 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

back  to  the  Carpathians.  The  result  for  us 
will  be  another  year  of  war,  losses,  and  misery, 
which  will  be  net  to  us  and  nothing  gained, 
and  we  owe  it  all  to  the  Germans."  This 
pretty  well  sums  up,  then,  the  failure  of  the 
German  advance  to  inspire  enthusiasm  in  the 
Austrian  troops  and  accounts  for  the  huge 
numbers  of  Austrians  which  the  Russians 
took,  even  as  they  retreated.  So  the  first 
aim  of  the  Germans  was  but  fulfilled  in  part. 
The  second  hope  to  create  a  moral  impression 
of  success  on  the  world  was  gained  for  the 
moment  only.  The  drive,  unfortunately  for 
the  Teutons,  came  just  too  late  to  have  any 
influence  on  Italy,  who  came  into  the  war  just 
as  the  phalanxes  of  artillery  were  opening  on 
the  Russian  Dunajec  line.  Perhaps  had  they 
waited  two  weeks  and  seen  the  German  sweep 
into  Galicia  they  might  have  held  their 
hands.  The  moral  effect  on  the  rest  of  the 
world  was  passing  because  nothing  immediate 
came  from  the  campaign  as  far  as  crumbling 

36 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Russia  politically,  or  looking  toward  the 
capitulation  of  the  Czar.  The  third  hope 
was  the  destruction  of  the  Russian  Army  in  the 
field,  which  is  always  the  major  objective  of 
contending  armies.  The  Russian  Army  not 
only  was  not  destroyed,  but  after  the  first 
shock  it  was  not  even  demoralized  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact  hardly  distressed.  I  know  this, 
because  I  was  with  it.  The  Germans  and 
Austrians,  no  doubt,  would  now  admit  if  they 
told  the  truth  that  they  failed  absolutely  in 
their  hope  seriously  to  impair  the  Russian 
Army.  Whether  they  admit  it  or  not,  the  fact 
remains  that  after  two  months  of  continuous 
retreating  the  Russians  were  sufficiently  in- 
tact to  come  to  a  stop  and  bring  their  enemies 
to  a  dead  standstill  on  the  lines  in  the  south, 
which  have  not  varied  so  very  much  in  the  six 
months  following.  The  Germans,  however, 
did  realize  their  last  objective,  in  that  they 
had  attained  a  position  in  Galicia  that  left 
them  on  the  southern  flank  of  Poland  in  an 

37 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

alignment  that  enabled  them  to  strike  a  new 
blow  on  Warsaw,  which  was  ultimately  a  suc- 
cessful one.  This,  of  course,  justified  the 
German  movement.  The  campaign,  I  think, 
however,  must  have  been  a  great  disappoint- 
ment, because  all  of  its  aims  were  not  achieved 
and  what  was  accomplished  was  at  a  terrible 
cost.  It  is  quite  impossible  for  me  to  get  any 
accurate  estimate  of  the  German  casualties. 
I  do  know,  however,  the  Russian  belief  as  to 
what  it  cost  Germany  alone  to  reach  the  final 
position  in  Galicia,  and  that  is  380,000  casual- 
ties. Certainly  every  village  and  town  in 
Silesia  was  flooded  with  wounded  and  the 
roads  filled  with  trains  carrying  them  back 
into  Germany.  The  Germans  throughout  this 
movement  probably  had  somewhere  in  the  vi- 
cinity of  sixteen  corps  in  this  campaign,  and 
with  troops  sent  down  to  fill  losses  probably 
had  nearly  700,000  men  engaged  in  the 
movement  of  two  months.  I  cannot  estimate 
the  Austrian  strength.     I  have  read  that  the 

38 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Germans  claimed  captures  of  Russians  amount- 
ing to  more  than  half  a  million.  Inasmuch 
as — to  the  best  of  my  information,  and  I  have 
visited  every  one  of  the  Russian  armies  engaged 
in  the  movement — the  Russians  never  had 
above  twenty  corps,  or  800,000  men,  in  Galicia 
at  any  one  time  during  this  movement,  and, 
inasmuch  as  they  eventually  checked  the 
Germans  and  Austrians  entirely,  I  am  in- 
clined to  put  their  total  losses  from  all  causes 
between  May  1st  and  July  1st,  which  really 
marks  the  evaporation  of  the  Galician  move- 
ment as  such,  as  not  exceeding  the  500,000 
which  I  am  told  that  the  Germans  claim  to 
have  taken  in  prisoners  alone.  Some  Ger- 
mans place  the  total  Russian  loss  in  Galicia 
during  this  campaign  as  above  a  million,  which 
is  probably  considerably  in  excess  of  the  ag- 
gregate of  all  the  Russian  soldiers  that  were  in 
Galicia  during  these  two  months. 

By  the  first  of  July  the  Russian  Army  was 
well  back  on  its  new  lines  of  defense,  and  the 

39 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Galician  movement,  as  such,  was  practically 
finished  for  the  time  being,  the  centre  of  activ- 
ity now  switching  to  the  great  German  drive 
from  Southern  Poland  toward  Warsaw. 


40 


THE  JULY  MOVEMENT  ON  WARSAW  FROM 

THE  SOUTH 

While  the  southern  armies  of  the  Austrians 
and  Germans  were  pushing  the  Russians  back 
into  Eastern  Galicia  the  more  northerly 
groups  were  already  swinging  to  the  north 
with  the  view  of  breaking  the  Russian  line 
that  was  settling  down  for  another  determined 
stand  on  what  has  come  to  be  called  the 
Chelm -Lublin  line  of  defense.  By  July  the 
Russians  from  Warsaw  had  come  to  form  a 
great  S.  Starting  from  the  old  Bzura  line, 
which  had  not  been  affected  by  the  retreat,  the 
line  dipped  eastward  from  Radom,  crossing 
the  Vistula  south  of  Nova  Alexandra,  then 
running  east  in  front  of  Lublin  and  Krasny- 
stav,  then  a  little  to  the  south  before  Grubies- 

41 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

zow,  and  thence  south  again  in  front  of  Sokal, 
whence  it  ran  along  approximately  the  old 
Krasne  line  to  the  head  of  the  Ztota  Lippa  and 
then  to  the  line  of  the  Dneister  River.  After 
the  Germans  retook  Rawa  Ruska,  where  the 
Russians  in  the  previous  September  had  over- 
whelmingly defeated  the  Austrians,  their  prog- 
ress was  extremely  slow,  for  from  the  Austrian 
frontier  northward  into  Poland  there  was  no 
railroad  line  and  but  very  few  good  roads. 
During  the  month  of  July  I  was  in  every  army, 
from  that  standing  before  Warsaw  to  the  most 
eastern  flank  holding  back  the  enemy  in  the 
Bukowina  district.  Though  I  do  not  pretend 
that  I  have  accurate  information  as  to  all  of 
these  movements,  I  still  believe  that  my 
sources  of  enlightenment  and  personal  observa- 
tion were  sufficiently  complete  to  justify  my 
writing  with  some  authority  on  the  situation, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Russians  at  this 
time.  The  press  of  the  Central  Powers  was  in 
July  rejoicing  in  the  fact  that  the  Austrians 

42 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

were  completely  rejuvenated  and  their  morale 
restored  to  the  same  state  that  it  was  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war.  What  the  Germans  did 
not  say,  however,  was  that  in  the  line  facing 
the  Russians  at  this  time  there  were  no  less  than 
twenty-six  interjections  of  German  formations 
among  the  Austrians,  not  to  mention  the  fact 
that  innumerable  Austrian  regiments  and  di- 
visions were  officered  by  Germans  in  Austrian 
uniform,  while  we  were  told  that  the  staffs  of 
the  armies  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  were  stiff 
with  Germans.  As  to  the  interjections  of 
Germans  among  the  Austrians  I  can  speak 
with  absolute  authority,  for  one  of  the  gen- 
erals commanding  an  important  sector  of  the 
front  engaged  at  this  period  of  the  operations 
showed  me  his  personal  map  on  which  the 
Austrians  were  marked  in  red  and  the  Germans 
in  blue,  and  I  counted  the  places  where  the 
Teutons  had  been  shoved  in  to  stiffen  up  the 
Austrians.  If  the  efficiency  of  the  Galician 
armies  was  braced  up,  then,  it  is  pretty  clear 

43 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

that  it  was  due  not  to  any  new  spirit  among 
them,  but  to  the  German  supports.  Along 
toward  the  end  of  June  this  stiffening  of  Ger- 
mans began  to  be  quietly  removed,  and  from 
the  moment  the  Teutons  disappeared  the 
advances  stopped  almost  at  once.  In  many 
places  they  could  not  be  removed  at  all  with- 
out the  Austrians  immediately  collapsing,  with 
the  result  that  German  troops  which  were  sent 
as  a  loan  to  the  Austrians  soon  became  a  per- 
manent necessity  to  the  portion  of  the  front 
to  which  they  had  been  sent,  and  have,  as  far 
as  I  know,  never  been  removed  from  that 
time.  In  latter  June  and  early  July  I  was  in 
the  south,  and  in  every  army  I  was  told  that 
the  German  troops  were  being  pulled  out  and 
sent  off  somewhere  to  the  west  and  north. 
This  I  heard  in  the  Ninth  Army  on  the  Dnei- 
ster,  in  the  Eleventh  near  Tarnopol,  and  again 
from  Brussilov  himself,  who,  with  the  Eighth 
Army,  was  holding  the  Krasne  line  as  far  north 
as  Sokal.     It  was  clear  then  that  some  big 

44 


Railroad  lines  in  operation  in  August,  1914.     Note  the  Teutonic 
superiority  in  rail  power 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

move  was  pending  north  of  us,  and  it  was  the 
opinion  of  all  with  whom  I  talked  that  the 
objective  would  be  the  Third  Army,  which  had 
its  headquarters  at  Chelm  and  was  the  same 
army  which  had  suffered  the  terrible  mutilation 
on  the  Dunajec  line  in  early  May.  Between 
this  army  and  the  Eighth  was  a  newly  formed 
one  called  the  Thirteenth,  which  held  the 
portion  of  the  line  between  Sokal  to  a  point 
almost  exactly  south  of  Chelm.  A  glance  at 
a  railroad  map  will  show  that  for  the  Germans 
advancing  via  Rawa  Ruska  to  attack  the 
Chelm-Lublin  line,  meant  dragging  all  of  their 
guns  and  transports  across  the  face  of  this 
Thirteenth  Army.  Roads  to  the  west  from  this 
part  of  Poland  were  few  and  far  between  and 
over  a  country  which,  except  on  highways,  was 
almost  impassable  for  motor  transport  or  heavy 
guns.  The  Germans  then  moved  slowly  on 
this  front,  because  at  no  time  during  the  war  to 
that  period  had  they  operated  with  so  many 
disadvantages  to  themselves.     As  soon  as  I 

45 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

learned  the  general  trend  of  affairs  I  left  the 
armies  of  Galicia  and  went  directly  to  the 
scene  of  the  impending  operations.  Once  out 
of  Galicia  all  of  these  armies  fell  under  the 
group  of  the  Warsaw  defense  which  was  com- 
manded by  General  Alexieff.  During  all  of 
the  trip  from  Galicia  (which  I  made  in  a 
motor  car)  my  mind  was  filled  with  appre- 
hension as  to  how  this  Third  Army,  after  such 
terrible  fighting  for  two  months  previous, 
could  possibly  withstand  another  drive.  But 
after  an  hour's  talk  with  the  general  com- 
manding this  army  my  fears  were  largely  dis- 
sipated, for  I  discovered  that  the  army, 
though  it  bore  the  same  number  as  that  of  the 
Dunajec  line,  was  practically  a  new  organi- 
zation throughout.  The  former  commander, 
Radko  Dimitrieff,  the  Bulgarian,  had  been  re- 
moved, and  in  his  place  a  man  hitherto  un- 
known outside  his  own  sphere  of  action  had 
been  appointed.  This  was  General  Loesche, 
formerly  a  division  commander  of  the  Guards. 

46 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

The  corps  that  had  been  so  battered  in  May 
had  been  sent  off  to  less  active  fronts  to  recu- 
perate and  refill,  while  other  formations,  taken 
from  all  over  the  front,  had  been  sent  down  to 
stiffen  up  this  line.  I  have  often  been  asked 
how  one  could  get  any  idea  as  to  the  plans  of 
the  Russians  or  what  they  really  had  in  mind. 
After  a  year  of  the  war  one  could  form  a  fairly 
accurate  conclusion  as  to  what  they  intended 
as  soon  as  one  found  out  what  troops  were  in 
certain  positions.  The  Guards,  the  Caucasians, 
or  the  Siberians  always  mean  expectation  of 
heavy  fighting  and  usually  mean  an  offensive 
planned.  On  this  front  I  found  at  once  the 
Guards,  two  Siberian  and  two  Caucasian  corps, 
besides  a  very  large  number  of  heavy  guns 
coming  slowly  into  position,  having  been  taken 
from  all  parts  of  the  Russian  front  to  stiffen 
up  this  line.  To  realize  the  importance  of 
this  Chelm-Lublin  line  it  is  necessary  to  refer 
to  the  railroad  map  of  Poland.  It  will  be 
seen  that  the  main  avenue  of  retreat  from 

47 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Warsaw  lay  approximately  east,  via  Sedlice 
(then  the  headquarters  of  AlexiefT)  and  Brest- 
Litowsk.  A  repetition  of  the  Galician  drive 
successfully  carried  out  before  Chelm  meant 
that  the  Germans  might  have  pushed  north 
over  a  good  road,  and  with  a  railroad  line  to 
assist  them  on  Brest  and  with  a  quick  push 
and  plenty  of  cavalry  could  have  reached 
Brest  actually  sooner  than  the  garrison  and 
defenders  of  Warsaw.  The  program  was 
ambitious,  and  had  it  succeeded  might  well 
have  resulted  in  the  destruction  and  capture 
of  three  or  four  of  the  Russian  armies  and  the 
absolute  collapse  of  their  whole  scheme  of 
defense.  The  occupation  of  Chelm  and  Lublin 
meant  the  cutting  of  the  line  from  Warsaw  to 
the  Galician  front,  which  was  a  serious  matter, 
as  it  represented  the  breaking  off  of  direct 
communications  between  the  two  groups, 
though  not  one  that  could  have  fatal  conse- 
quences. The  German  plan  was  sound,  and 
directed,    as   have   been   all   of   their    plans, 

48 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

with  an  aim  which,  if  successful,  might 
have  broken  down  the  Russian  resistance  and 
given  them  real  ground  for  hoping  that  peace 
might  result  with  Russia,  though  personally 
I  have  never  believed  that  the  Czar  could  ever 
be  forced  into  breaking  his  agreement  with  the 
Allies  on  the  west. 

While  this  movement  was  gaining  headway 
in  the  south  a  similar  program  was  pending 
in  the  north  on  the  so-called  Narew  line.  To 
cut  this  line  and  get  through  to  the  railroad 
between  Petrograd  and  Warsaw  meant  the 
isolation  of  the  Polish  capital  from  the  north 
and  its  enforced  evacuation.  Both  the  Narew 
and  Chelm-Lublin  movements  were  actually 
under  way  at  once,  but  inasmuch  as  the  latter 
really  was  the  graver  menace  and  dominated 
for  a  week  during  the  middle  of  July,  it  deserves 
to  be  considered  first. 


40 


VI 

THE  DRIVE   ON  THE   CHELM-LUBLIN   LINE 

The  lull  preceding  the  storm  of  mid-July 
in  Southern  Poland  was  a  period  of  great 
activity  behind  both  lines.  The  Germans 
were  straining  every  effort  to  bring  up  their 
big  guns  and  their  hordes  of  smaller  ones, 
while  the  Russian  aeroplane  observers  re- 
ported every  road  from  the  south  choked  with 
reinforcements  moving  to  the  front.  The 
whole  line  stretching  from  the  Vistula  to 
south  of  Chelm  was  heavily  defended  by  the 
Germans,  and  as  their  artillery  were  ranging 
day  by  day,  just  as  had  been  the  case  in  May 
on  the  Dunajec  line,  it  was  realized  by  the 
Russians  that  the  enemy  were  planning  what 
they  no  doubt  hoped  would  be  a  repetition  of 
the  Galician  drive.     But  Loesche,  who  was  now 

50 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

in  command,  was  alive  to  the  menace  of  the 
situation,  which  undoubtedly  was  the  gravest 
in  its  possible  consequences  that  the  war  had 
so  far  developed.  The  Grand  Duke,  realizing 
the  acuteness  of  the  danger,  backed  him  up 
loyally,  and  by  the  12th  of  July  Loesche  had 
everything  that  the  General  Staff  rould  give 
him  to  help  him  hold  his  line.  Seven  mag- 
nificent corps,  with  the  heaviest  support  of 
big  guns  that  I  had  yet  seen,  plus  the  fact  that 
Loesche  himself  was  a  clear-headed  and  cou- 
rageous fighter,  raised  all  of  our  spirits  to  a 
higher  point  than  they  had  been  since  May. 
The  idea  of  Loesche  was  that  an  aggressive  de- 
fense was  the  most  effective  kind  of  defense. 
As  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  observe  in  these 
big  artillery  actions  the  only  solution  is  to 
attack  first.  If  one  is  able  to  make  even  a 
small  advance  from  one's  fortified  line,  one  at 
least  has  the  advantage  of  being  out  of  the 
zone  in  which  all  of  the  ranges  have  been 
exactly  ascertained,  and  hence  fighting  is  much 

51 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

more  favorable  to  the  attackers.  Loesche, 
feeling  this,  was  straining  every  nerve  to 
anticipate  the  German  move,  by  himself 
launching  an  attack  on  the  German  centre, 
held  by  the  Prussian  Guards,  south  of  Krasny- 
stav.  It  was  felt  by  the  Russians  that  if  this 
front  could  be  broken  it  would  necessitate  the 
retirement  of  the  Germans  across  the  face  of 
the  Thirteenth  Army  on  the  line  of  the  Bug. 
It  was  hoped  that  this  army  might  then 
advance,  threatening  the  line  of  the  German 
retreat  and  communications,  while  at  the  first 
success  two  cavalry  corps  tucked  away  behind 
Sokal  were  available  for  release  on  the  German 
line  of  transport  and  supplies.  The  Russians 
had  an  excellent  situation  potentially,  though, 
as  always,  their  greatest  handicap  was  short- 
age of  munitions.  It  must  be  said,  however, 
that  in  view  of  the  gravity  of  the  menace  and 
the  possibility  of  striking  heavily  at  the 
enemy,  other  fronts  had  been  stripped  of 
supplies,  even  to  the  danger  point,  to  give 

52 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Loesche  at  least  a  fighting  chance.  The  Ger- 
man centre  of  activity  was  in  front  of  Krasny- 
stav,  while,  we  were  told,  the  flank  toward 
the  Vistula  was  held  by  the  Austrians.  The 
movement  began  by  an  attempt  on  the  part 
of  the  Austrians  to  advance  on  Lublin  from 
the  southwest.  '  For  several  days  they  made 
excellent  progress,  actually  driving  a  hole 
through  the  Russian  line.  The  flanking 
corps  of  E warts,  who  stood  west  and  north  of 
Loesche,  however,  solved  this  problem  by  mak- 
ing a  vigorous  attack  on  the  Austrian  com- 
munications, and  by  cooperation  between 
both  armies  (Ewarts  and  Loesche)  the  Aus- 
trians came  a  cropper  and  were  cut  off  from 
the  main  body,  losing  more  than  20,000  pris- 
oners, not  to  mention  numerous  casualties. 
These  are  Russian  figures,  but  I  accept  them 
because  I  was  at  Ewarts'  headquarters  a  few 
days  later  and  saw  his  line  of  communications 
to  the  rear  literally  choked  with  mile  after 
mile  of  the  dusty  blue-clad  Austrian  prisoners. 

53 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Their  state  of  morale  at  this  time  is  evident 
from  the  remark  of  a  certain  non-commissioned 
officer  to  a  Russian  colonel.  "It  is  lucky  for 
us,"  he  remarked,  'that  the  fight  came  just 
when  it  did,  for  in  three  days  we  would  have 
had  a  corps  and  a  half  of  Germans  in  support 
and  they  would  never  have  permitted  us  to 
surrender."  Thus  the  first  part  of  the  move- 
ment was  in  favor  of  the  Russians.  The 
day  for  the  Russian  advance  had  actually 
been  set.  No  doubt  the  Germans  knew  it  as 
soon  as  we  did,  for  their  information  is  perfect. 
In  any  event,  they  attacked  two  days  before. 
The  blow  fell  on  the  Krasnystav  front,  before 
which  stood  the  Third  Caucasians  and  the 
Fourteenth  European  Corps,  both  of  which  had 
proved  themselves  many  times.  I  had  been 
in  both  these  corps  a  few  days  before  and  had 
examined  the  front  line  trenches  held  by  the 
Caucasians,  and  had  up  to  that  time  never 
seen  such  elaborate  or  well-designed  field- 
works  in  any  of  the  theatres  of  operations. 

54 


KEY 

Mam  lines  of  operation 

Roman 

Germanic  Allies 

Secondary  lines  of  operation 

Rusi.in 

Cerm»nic  Allies 

Fronl  of  opoosinj  forces 

Great  Baltle  awn      ,        ,    fj 
Centers  of  Concentration  ^ 

«„„..„ @ 

Germsnlc  Allies ^% 

SCALE  OF  MILES 

25         SO  100 


oBERLIN 

O  DRESDEN 

O PRAGUE 


BRESLAU 
O 


"»-aitfE 


TARNOW     ^^ 


c^rps* 


AUSTRIA  -  HUNGARY 


nVIENNA 


CZERNOWmOJ*."™ 


The  Chelm-Lublin  line,  July,  1915 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

A  maze  of  trenches  was  to  serve  as  a  refuge 
from  the  bombardment,  and  the  front  line 
trench  itself  was  covered  over  with  heavy 
timbers  on  which  was  piled  five  or  six  feet  of 
dirt,  all  well  sodded,  to  escape  observation  as 
far  as  possible. 

As  this  corps  stood  across  the  highway  lead- 
ing to  Krasnystav,  Chelm,  and  to  Brest- 
Litowsk  the  Germans  concentrated  their  at- 
tention on  the  unfortunate  Caucasians.  I 
rarely  see  the  German  papers,  but  I  was  told 
that  they  reported  that  the  German  infantry 
swept  the  Russians  out  of  their  trenches  with 
the  bayonet.  This  is  not  true.  What  happened 
was  that  the  Russian  first  line  was,  even  as  in 
Galicia,  practically  washed  away  by  high  explo- 
sive shells  and  its  defenders  annihilated.  After- 
ward I  inquired  to  ascertain  the  casualties  in  the 
trench  I  had  visited  and  how  it  had  withstood 
the  bombardment.  I  learned  to  my  astonish- 
ment that  it  was  practically  swept  away  by 
shells  in  two  hours  and  that  but  six  whole  men 

55 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

emerged  intact  from  a  company  of  240.  This, 
I  think,  makes  it  reasonably  clear  to  what  ex- 
tent German  infantry  dash  was  responsible 
for  the  advance  on  Krasnystav.  As  one 
Russian  staff  officer  remarked  to  me:  "The 
German  advance  on  our  centre  was  not  spec- 
tacular. Simply  the  Prussian  Guards  in  col- 
umn of  fours  marching  down  the  highway. 
Our  defenders  were  mostly  killed."  But  the 
Germans  were  dealing  with  a  new  man  in 
Loesche,  and  the  break  in  the  front  line  did 
not  in  the  least  upset  his  equanimity.  The 
Guards,  three  full  divisions,  were  ordered  up 
from  the  reserve  and  fell  on  the  Germans  in 
front  of  Krasnystav  and  drove  them  back. 
Then  came  another  German  advance  which 
took  them  over  Krasnystav  and  threw  the 
Russians  back  toward  Chelm.  Again  the 
Russians  countered  and  drove  the  Germans 
back,  and  again  the  Germans  massed  and  came 
on.  After  the  first  week  it  became  clear  that 
the  German  strength,  with  its  limitless  supply 

56 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

of  shells,  reinforcements,  and  munitions  of 
all  sorts,  would  not  be  denied,  but  it  became 
equally  clear  that  the  driving  back  of  Loesche 
was  to  be  no  advance  such  as  the  Germans 
had  had  in  Galicia.  Here  it  was  a  big  battle 
and  a  gain  of  eight  miles.  A  Russian  coun- 
ter-attack and  a  loss  of  five.  A  pause  for  a 
few  days  and  then  another  German  drive,  and 
perhaps  six  miles  gained,  with  again  the  Rus- 
sian counter-attack  and  the  Germans  thrown 
back  four.  So  for  two  weeks  the  line  of  battle 
was  an  extended  zigzag,  representing  advances 
here  and  retreats  there,  but  nothing  decisive 
or  sweeping  anywhere,  though  it  was  clear 
that  day  by  day  the  Germans  were  coming 
ahead.  After  the  first  week  it  was  obvious 
to  me  that  Loesche  had  saved  the  situation 
from  its  gravest  menace,  in  that  he  had  taken 
the  first  crash  of  the  German  advance,  and 
though  he  had  fallen  back  his  army  had  been 
neither  broken  nor  demoralized.  In  my  motor 
I  covered  the  country  in  the  rear  of  the  fight- 

57 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

ing  lines,  looking  over  the  positions  being  pre- 
pared in  the  rear,  and  after  a  few  days  was 
absolutely  confident  that  under  the  conditions 
which  I  found  it  would  take  the  Germans 
weeks  of  fighting  to  reach  Brest-Litowsk  and 
cut  the  Russian  line  of  escape  from  Warsaw. 
In  all  of  this  fighting  I  noticed  what  I  have 
observed  later  in  many  other  places,  and 
that  was  the  German  lack  of  capacity  to  ad- 
vance after  they  had  got  beyond  the  range  of 
their  supporting  artillery.  I  have  seen  it 
repeatedly.  A  heavy  German  artillery  action 
is  followed  by  an  infantry  attack.  The  de- 
fenders being  largely  killed,  the  Germans  may 
advance  ten  miles  in  a  day.  But  before  the 
artillery  can  be  moved  up  the  Russians  deliver 
a  counter-attack  and  almost  invariably  drive 
back  the  enemy.  It  was  for  this  reason  that 
the  advance  on  the  Chelm-Lublin  line  was  so 
slow.  The  Germans  were  quick  to  see  that 
their  chances  of  sweeping  the  Russians  before 
them  and  rushing  on  to  Brest  and  their  big 

58 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

decision,  was  lost  to  them,  and  from  a  bid  for  a 
colossal  movement  their  campaign  in  the 
south  settled  down  to  a  slow  and  stubborn 
day-by-day  attacking  operation,  which  was 
obliged  to  content  itself  with  a  few  miles 
advance  each  week  instead  of  the  avalanche 
that  had  been  planned.  During  this  early 
movement  I  twice  visited  the  Chelm-Lublin 
front  and  was  in  four  different  corps  and  at 
the  positions  in  many  places,  and  I  believe, 
therefore,  that  my  analysis  of  the  action  though 
possibly  inexact  in  detail  is  correct  from  the 
general  point  of  view.  During  these  early 
days  we  knew  that  fighting  was  proceeding 
on  the  Narew  north  of  Warsaw,  but  up  to 
the  15th  or  20th  of  July  the  major  German 
objective  was  undoubtedly  the  Chelm-Lublin 
line.  As  soon  as  it  became  evident  that  a 
quick  rush  was  out  of  the  question  in  the 
south  the  fighting  in  the  north  suddenly 
assumed  such  violence  as  to  bring  the  realiza- 
tion upon  all  that  the  greatest  danger  now  lay 

59 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

in  the  possibility  of  the  enemy  cutting  the 
Warsaw-Petrograd  Railroad  and  thus  forcing 
the  evacuation  of  the  Polish  Capital.  As  soon 
as  this  became  evident  I  left  the  south,  return- 
ing via  Wlodawa  and  Brest,  for  the  enemy 
advances  had  already  cut  the  railroad  between 
Lublin  and  Chelm. 


60 


VII 

FIGHTING  IN  THE  NORTH 

The  fighting  in  the  north  had  up  to  the 
15  th  of  July  been  near  enough  the  normal 
activities  not  to  have  aroused  any  undue 
anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  Russians.  This 
line,  which  in  a  general  way  ran  in  front  of 
Lomza,  Przasnys,  Ciechanow,  and  then  south 
to  the  Vistula,  where  it  tied  up  with  the  Bzura 
line  forty  miles  in  front  of  Warsaw,  practically 
paralleled  the  line  of  the  railroad  that  con- 
nected Petrograd  and  Warsaw.  A  rupture  of 
this  railroad  did  not  necessarily  mean  a  dis- 
aster to  the  Russian  Army,  but  it  did  mean  that 
the  holding  of  Warsaw  would  be  but  the  mat- 
ter of  days.  The  main  line  of  retreat  to 
Brest-Litowsk  and  Moscow  would  still  be  left 
open,  and  as  long  as  that  was  not  menaced 

61 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

by  the  collapse  of  Loesche's  army  in  the  south 
the  situation  in  Warsaw  was  not  hazardous. 
All  of  us  who  had  any  familiarity  with  the 
country  to  the  north  felt  a  good  deal  of  confi- 
dence that  nothing  quick  nor  sweeping  would 
come  from  that  quarter,  because  the  defenses 
were  excellent  and  the  defenders  largely 
Siberians,  who  could  be  relied  upon  to  hold  out 
to  the  last  man  and  to  the  last  minute. 
The  First  Russian  Army  was  defending  this 
sector.  I  had  just  come  back  from  Krasny- 
stav  and  Chelm  with  a  greater  degree  of 
optimism  than  I  had  felt  for  months  when 
news  began  to  leak  into  "Warsaw  that  heavy 
fighting  was  developing  around  Przasnys  and 
Ciechanow  and  still  farther  to  the  north 
around  Lomza.  The  general  opinion  of  the 
military  authorities  was  that  this  movement 
was  intended  as  a  containing  action  to  prevent 
the  shifting  of  Russian  troops  to  Loesche, 
where  the  main  German  drive  seemed  to  be 
under  way.     The  German  losses  since  May 

62 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

had  been  so  heavy  that  it  seemed  improbable 
that  they  could  at  this  time  land  two  terrific 
attacks  at  the  same  moment.  Besides,  the  Rus- 
sians had  been  expecting  daily  an  offensive  by 
England  and  France,  which  if  it  did  not  actu- 
ally take  troops  from  the  east  would  certainly 
prevent  troops  from  being  shifted  from  the 
western  front  to  reinforce  the  Germans  fight- 
ing against  Russia.  By  the  time  this  activity 
developed  in  the  north  the  Russians  had  very 
largely  committed  to  one  front  or  another  the 
bulk  of  their  mobile  reserves,  and  it  did  not, 
therefore,  seem  wise  to  endeavor  to  hold  the 
advance  northern  line.  Therefore  the  troops 
of  the  Czar  began  to  fall  back  on  the  Narew 
line  to  enable  them  to  hold  a  shorter  front 
without  reinforcing,  which  would  have  been 
necessary  were  the  advanced  lines  to  be  held. 
At  least  this  was  the  version  given  by  the  Rus- 
sians. While  these  movements  were  under 
way  I  was  mostly  in  the  south  and  cannot 
deny  from  my  own  information  the  German 

63 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

claims  of  having  swept  the  Russians  out  of 
their  advance  positions.  A  Russian  colonel 
who  came  from  the  positions  immediately  after 
the  withdrawal  assured  me  that  the  Russians 
knew  when  the  Germans  planned  the  attack 
and  left  early  in  the  night,  fooling  the  Germans 
into  firing  80,000  shells  at  the  abandoned 
trenches  before  they  realized  that  the  main 
Russian  force  was  already  well  back  on  to  the 
new  positions  in  the  rear.  The  news  of  this 
retreat  threw  Warsaw,  always  nervous  and 
jumpy,  into  a  panic  of  alarm,  and  for  the 
hundredth  time  since  I  had  followed  the  for- 
tunes of  that  fair  city  I  heard  on  every  hand 
that  Warsaw  was  at  last  to  be  evacuated.  It 
is  difficult  for  me  to  place  dates  exactly,  but  as 
near  as  I  can  learn  the  retreat  to  the  Narew 
was  about  the  17th,  and  on  the  same  day  the 
Russians  began  to  fall  back  on  the  so-called 
Blonie  line,  which  was  the  last  important 
defense  before  Warsaw  itself.  This  line  of 
trenches  was  begun  in  the  previous  Novem- 

64 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

ber  or  December,  when  the  second  German 
invasion  of  Poland  was  gaining  alarming  head- 
way. The  line  extended  roughly  from  the 
fortress  of  Novogeorgievsk  almost  due  south 
to  Blonie  and  Grodzisk  and  then  southeast  to 
the  Vistula  at  Gorakalwarja,  forming  a  half- 
circle  surrounding  Warsaw.  This  line  was  the 
best  planned  and  laid  out  of  any  the  Russians 
then  had.  At  Blonie,  where  I  had  the  op- 
portunity of  examining  it  more  in  detail,  it 
consisted  of  six  lines  of  trenches  with  forests  of 
barbed  wire.  Artillery  positions  had  been 
constructed  months  before,  and  everything 
within  the  field  of  fire  had  been  cut  down. 
The  front  trenches  were  beautifully  covered 
over  and  the  country  before  them  was  so  flat 
that  one  could  see  without  a  break  as  far  as  a 
field  gun  could  throw  a  shell.  Personally,  then, 
I  was  not  greatly  alarmed  when  it  became 
known  that  the  Bzura  line  had  been  abandoned 
and  the  whole  line  south  of  Gorakalwarja  had 
been  pulled  back  to  the  line  of  the  Vistula  with 

65 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

the  exceptions  of  a  few  strips  around  the  bridge 
heads  at  Nowa  Alexandra,  Ivangrod,  and  other 
points.  It  was  clear  that  the  Russians  pro- 
posed to  use  their  strength  to  the  very  best  of 
their  ability  and  make  every  unit  as  produc- 
tive as  possible,  which  meant  holding  on  only 
to  the  places  that  were  indispensable  from 
strategic  reasons.  The  world  at  large  always 
believed  that  the  Germans  were  going  up 
against  numbers  of  Russians  far  in  excess  of 
their  own.  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  disclose  what 
exact  numbers  the  Russians  had  at  this  time, 
but  I  can  state  that  the  effective  strength  of 
the  Czar's  army  in  the  fighting  line  from  the 
Bukowina  to  the  Baltic  was  not  greatly  in  ex- 
cess of  the  Germans  alone  on  the  eastern 
front.  I  do  feel  at  liberty  to  state  that  I 
knew  of  one  sector  in  the  line  where  a  cavalry 
corps  supported  by  but  four  heavy  guns  and 
meagre  field  artillery  was  holding  a  front  of 
more  than  forty  miles.  It  is  true  that  the  Rus- 
sians had  plenty  of  men  in  uniform  and  in 

C6 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

training,  but  without  rifles  or  munitions  this 
superiority  did  them  no  good.  I  think  it  safe 
to  say  that  never  from  May  until  the  end  of 
the  Warsaw  movements  did  the  Russians  have, 
including  garrisons  and  reserves,  in  excess  of 
1,500,000  effective  troops,  a  large  portion  of 
which  were  not  of  course  available  in  these 
operations.  To  the  best  of  my  advices  the 
Germans  had  in  these  operations  well  up  to  if 
not  more  than  a  million  in  their  fighting  line, 
not  to  speak  of  the  cohorts  of  their  Austro- 
Hungarian  Allies  in  Galicia.  It  will  be  readily 
seen,  then,  that  the  Russians  had  no  troops  to 
spare  about  Warsaw  or  anywhere  else,  and  why 
it  was  necessary  to  shorten  the  lines  to  make 
the  limited  number  of  troops  hold  the  most 
important  places.  Blonie  is  but  seventeen  miles 
from  Warsaw,  and  when  it  became  known  that 
the  army  was  coming  back  onto  this  position 
the  population  of  the  city  was  in  despair, 
which  even  I  felt  had  some  foundation  when 
on  the  evening  of  the  17th  of  July  the  civil 

67 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

evacuation  of  Warsaw  was  announced  for  the 
following  Monday.  Then  began  in  Warsaw 
that  period  of  packing  up  and  moving  out 
which  I  had  already  seen  on  a  widespread 
scale  in  Galicia.  Peasants  that  had  been 
living  between  the  Bzura  and  the  Blonie  lines 
came  pouring  through  the  town,  and  night  and 
day  the  lines  of  carts  bearing  the  household 
treasures  of  the  peasantry  creaked  and  groaned 
through  the  main  streets  of  the  town  on  their 
way  eastward.  At  once  began  the  operations 
of  mining  all  of  the  bridges  over  the  Vistula 
and  the  throwing  up  of  fieldworks  across  the 
river  at  Praga.  From  the  roof  of  the  hotel 
was  visible  the  clouds  of  smoke  rolling  up  from 
the  west  where  the  Russians  were  burning  the 
country  ahead  of  the  German  advance.  Mean- 
time the  Russians  were  painstakingly  collect- 
ing what  copper  was  available  in  the  town 
and  sending  it  back  across  the  river.  Bells, 
machinery,  and  tools  containing  copper  were 
seen  all  day  by  the  vanload  as  they  dragged 

68 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

out  over  the  Vistula  bridges.  Up  to  this  time, 
however,  the  military  situation  before  Warsaw 
itself  was  not  acute.  The  defense  which  was 
being  made  by  the  Second  Army  had  for  its  use 
four  corps.  The  Fifth  Siberian  stood  nearest 
the  Vistula.  Directly  in  front  of  Warsaw  was 
the  Sixth  European,  and  next  that  lay  the 
Thirty-fifth  Reserve  Corps,  a  new  formation 
which  we  had  gotten  in  May,  and  on  the  south- 
ern flank  stood  the  Thirty-sixth  Reserve  Corps 
with  its  wing  resting  on  the  Vistula.  Some 
extra  troops  were  holding  the  bank  of  the  Vis- 
tula toward  a  point  to  the  south  where  the 
northerly  flank  of  Ewarts  took  up  the  respon- 
sibility of  keeping  back  the  Germans.  All  of 
this  time  fighting  of  varying  intensity  was 
going  on  north  of  Warsaw,  and  increasing 
German  concentrations  around  Makow  were 
reported,  and  the  evidence  indicated  that  a 
real  drive  was  developing  on  this  sector.  In 
regard  to  the  movements  in  the  north  from 
July  20th  to  the  23d  I  speak  with  some  hesita- 

69 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

tion  and  reserve,  as  my  own  time  was  devoted  for 
those  days  to  the  situation  in  the  south  and  on 
the  immediate  front  of  Warsaw  itself.  From 
July  24th  until  the  fall  of  Warsaw  I  was  en- 
tirely on  this  front  and  can  therefore  write  the 
balance  of  the  story  to  that  time  with  more 
certainty  than  the  movements  mentioned  in 
the  preceding  paragraphs. 


70 


VIII 

THE  DRIVE  ON  THE  NAREW  LINE 

By  the  22d  of  July  it  was  reasonably  clear 
that  the  German  movements  in  the  north 
were  no  mere  demonstration,  but  a  violent 
assault  to  break  through  the  Russian  line  in 
strength  and  cut  the  railroad  to  Petrograd. 
The  belief  by  the  Russians  that  the  major 
German  effort  would  fall  in  the  south  had 
resulted,  as  I  have  shown,  in  the  sending  of 
picked  corps  from  all  other  fronts  to  the  Chelm- 
Lublin  line.  Three  of  the  best  corps  that  had 
heretofore  been  used  in  the  Warsaw  defense 
were  fighting  in  Southern  Poland,  and  when 
the  unexpectedly  heavy  blow  fell  on  the 
Narew  the  Russians  were  not  in  condition  to 
put  up  as  strong  a  resistance  as  Loesche  was 
offering  in  the  south.     Not  only  was  it  difficult 

71 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

to  find  new  men  to  throw  into  the  firing  line, 
but  out  of  the  meagre  reserves  of  ammunition 
then  available  the  bulk  was  going  to  the 
southern  front,  where  the  menace  seemed  to 
be  the  greatest.  It  is  very  difficult  to  estimate 
the  exact  numbers  engaged,  but  to  the  best  of 
my  information — and  my  sources  were  excel- 
lent— the  Germans  were  able  to  concentrate  on 
the  Narew  sector  (with  their  centre  of  attack  on 
Pultusk)  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of 
131  active  battalions,  and  thirteen  or  fourteen 
reserve  battalions,  giving  them  an  effective 
infantry  force  of  not  much  less  than  150,000, 
not  to  mention  their  artillery  and  other  arms. 
Against  this  force  the  Russians  were  able  to 
concentrate  at  the  threatened  point  probably 
less  than  two-thirds  of  that  number  of  in- 
fantry, and  not  more  than  a  third  to  a  half  of 
the  amount  of  artillery,  and  probably  had  not 
more  than  a  fifth  of  the  quantity  of  munitions 
even  at  the  beginning  of  the  operations,  and 
this  ultimately  ran  down  to  approximately 

72 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

a  tenth,  or  even  less,  for  some  of  the  batteries 
ran  out  of  shells  entirely.  The  heaviest 
attack  fell  on  Pultusk  itself,  where  I  was  in- 
formed the  enemy  effected  a  concentration 
of  fire  from  150  guns  on  a  front  of  a  few  miles 
in  length.  This  narrow  strip  was  held  by  a 
certain  Siberian  corps  which  had  fallen  back 
a  few  days  before  from  Makow,  where  it  had 
held  back  for  several  days  three  times  its 
numbers  of  Germans.  The  same  situation 
developed  as  I  have  chronicled  on  the  Kras- 
nystav  front.  The  Russians  were  not  turned 
out  of  their  trenches  in  disorder  by  the  Ger- 
man bayonets.  They  remained  at  their  posts 
and  for  the  most  part  were  blown  into  atoms 
by  the  German  high  explosive  shells  that 
were  rained  upon  them.  In  this  way  the 
enemy  broke  down  a  line  of  perhaps  five 
miles  and  managed  to  cross  the  Narew  line 
and  to  establish  themselves  on  the  eastern 
bank  with  a  force  that  the  Russians  estimated 
to  aggregate  nearly  ten  divisions.     The  cross- 

73 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

ing  of  the  Narew  probably  took  place  about 
the  24th  of  July,  though  I  am  not  absolutely 
certain  of  the  date.  With  the  Russian  line 
broken  in  its  most  important  point  there 
began  what  might  be  called  a  giving  back  of 
the  Russians  both  north  and  south  of  the 
sector  that  had  been  caved  in  by  German 
artillery  superiority.  The  Teutons  were  not 
slow  to  follow  up  their  success  on  the  Narew, 
and  with  their  new  base  on  Pultusk  struck 
southeast  toward  the  little  town  of  Wyszkow 
with  the  hope  of  cutting  the  branch  railroad 
at  that  point,  which  was  the  avenue  of  com- 
munications of  the  First  Army.  From  there  it 
was  but  seventeen  miles  to  the  main  line  of 
railroad  from  Petrograd  to  Warsaw.  With 
their  first  impetuous  rush  the  Germans,  sup- 
ported by  their  heavy  artillery,  forced  the 
Russians  back  to  within  four  miles  of  Wyszkow. 
So  near  were  they,  in  fact,  that  they  could 
see  the  trains  on  the  railroad  that  were  feed- 
ing the  Russian  front  and  taking  back  the 

74 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

wounded.  But,  as  has  so  often  been  the 
case  in  this  war  on  the  eastern  front,  the  Ger- 
man advance  far  outstripped  the  movements 
forward  of  their  own  artillery. 

The  Russians  were  licked  hurriedly  into 
shape  and  delivered  a  counter-attack  with 
such  violence  that  the  Germans  were  thrown 
back  nearly  ten  miles  of  their  hard-won 
ground,  losing  terribly  in  casualties  and  more 
than  1,000  in  prisoners  taken  by  the  impetu- 
osity of  the  peasant  soldiers  of  the  Czar.  By 
this  time  the  Russians  had  begun  to  readjust 
themselves,  and  reserves  snatched  from  here 
and  there  along  less  pressing  fronts  to  the 
north  were  thrown  in  from  day  to  day  as  fast 
as  they  arrived,  and  by,  say,  the  28th  to  the 
29th  the  gravest  crisis  on  this  front  had  passed, 
for,  even  as  Loesche  had  done  in  front  of  Kras- 
nystav,  Litvinov  (commanding  the  First  Army) 
had  done  in  the  north.  That  is,  he  had 
accepted  the  first  great  crash,  and  though  he 

had  bent  beneath  it  and  been  forced  back  at 

75 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

first,  he  had  regained  a  portion  of  the  lost 
ground  and  had  broken  down  the  momentum 
of  the  German  assault  which  hereafter  was 
obliged  to  be  content  with  a  few  miles  gained 
each  day.  It  was  clear,  then,  that  the  move- 
ments in  the  north  were  not  going  to  be 
sufficiently  rapid  to  enable  the  Germans  to 
advance  suddenly  on  the  Petrograd  line  and 
by  cutting  the  same,  menace  the  immediate 
communications  with  Warsaw. 

During  these  days  I  spent  the  bulk  of  my  time 
between  Warsaw  and  the  First  Army  headquar- 
ters, where  I  was  kept  roughly  informed  of  the 
developments  by  the  staff  of  the  general 
commanding.  During  this  time  I  was  back 
of  the  lines  most  of  the  time,  though  with  corps 
at  the  front  several  times  during  the  action. 
Everything  was  chaotic  and  uncertain,  and 
for  three  days  it  was  impossible  to  estimate 
whether  or  not  the  Germans  would  be  able  to 
drive  through  on  to  the  main  railroad  line  and 
bring  about  the  disaster  that  they  were  hoping 

76 


Closing  in  on  Warsaw,  July  28,  1915 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

for.     The    acuteness    of    the    situation    was 
aggravated  by   the   shortage  of  ammunition, 
which  became  more  and  more  apparent  with 
each  day  that  the  fighting  continued.     What 
we  saw  daily  on  the  roads  behind  the  line  was 
dramatic  to  a  degree.     I  knew  from  informa- 
tion that  I  had  received  at  the  staff  of  the 
general   commanding   the   whole    front    that 
there  was  some  ammunition  on  the  way — not 
a  lot,  to  be  sure,  but  enough  to  give  the  First 
Army  at  least  a  fighting  chance  to  hold  its  own. 
During  the  fighting  around  Wyszkow  the 
situation  was  at  its  worst.     The  German  guns 
were  pounding  away  with  a  continuity  that 
made  it  impossible  to  distinguish  any  separate 
report.     What  came  to  our  ears  was  like  the 
constant  rolling  of  thunder.     To  answer  this 
fusillade  the  Russian  guns  had  at  no  time  much 
and  often  nothing  at  all.     At  the  railhead  be- 
hind the  lines  caissons  were  waiting  for  trains 
to  arrive  from   Moscow   with   shrapnel   and 
small-arm  ammunition,  and  the  moment  that 

77 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

an  engine  and  its  string  of  trucks  pulled  in  a 
hundred  eager  hands  fell  on  the  carloads  of 
shrapnel  shells  and  transferred  them  to  the 
caissons  and  limbers.  Again  and  again  in 
these  dreary  days  I  have  seen  the  caissons 
fifteen  and  twenty  miles  from  the  rear  going 
toward  the  front  at  a  gallop.  One  could 
recognize  them  a  mile  away  by  the  clouds  of 
dust  that  rose  above  the  road.  With  six 
horses  to  a  team,  each  lathered  with  sweat  and 
with  nostrils  literally  dripping  blood  from  their 
exertions,  they  would  come  past  at  a  gallop, 
the  drivers  laying  on  the  whips  and  the  lim- 
bers bumping  and  clanking  over  the  rough 
roads  with  a  metallic  jingle.  It  was  a  question 
often  of  minutes  as  to  whether  or  not  the 
munitions  would  arrive.  From  miles  in  the 
rear  one  could  tell  exactly  when  the  caissons 
reached  the  front,  for  then  would  begin  in- 
stantly the  drumming  of  our  own  guns  taking 
up  the  burden  of  their  work  once  more. 

It  is  impossible  to  estimate  what  this  un- 

78 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

equal  fight  cost  the  Russians,  but  it  certainly 
was  not  little,  for  the  roads  each  day  were 
filled  with  wounded  coming  to  the  rear.  One 
often  hears  the  statement  made  that  the 
Russian  soldiers  have  small  interest  in  their 
cause,  but  if  one  of  the  doubters  could  have 
been  with  me  these  exciting  days  and  seen 
and  talked  with  the  returning  wounded  as  I 
have  done  he  would  have  thought  otherwise. 
"We  must  hold  the  line,"  was  the  word  on 
every  man's  lips,  often  so  faint  from  weakness 
that  one  could  barely  hear  it.  By  the  29th 
or  30th  the  gravity  of  the  crisis  was  passed, 
for  a  slight  increase  of  munitions  and  the 
arrival  of  some  reserves  made  it  clear  that  any 
future  advances  of  the  Germans  would  be  on 
the  instalment  plan,  and  that  Warsaw  itself 
was  not  for  the  moment  in  immediate  danger. 
The  credit  of  this  stubborn  resistance,  which 
it  seems  to  me  the  Germans  must  recognize 
and  admit,  was  due  purely  to  the  character 
of    the    Russian    peasant    soldier.     Short    of 

79 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

men,  short  of  munitions,  outnumbered  in  every 
particular,  they  still  managed  to  hold  on  until 
the  impetus  of  the  Germans  was  broken  and 
once  again  the  chance  of  inflicting  a  calamity 
had  slipped  from  Teuton  hands. 


80 


IX 

THE  ANGUISH  OF  WARSAW 

August  1,  1915,  marked  the  termination  of 
a  year  in  which,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
months,  the  fate  of  Warsaw  was  never  really 
out  of  the  balance.  To  one  who  spent  the 
larger  portion  of  this  eventful  year  never  far 
from  the  threatened  city  it  seems  as  though  the 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  fortunes  of  war  around  the 
capital  of  Poland  presents  one  of  the  most 
dramatic  pages  in  the  world's  history.  From 
the  day  that  the  Germans  declared  war  on 
Russia  there  began  the  uncertainty  as  to  the 
destiny  of  the  greatest  of  Polish  cities,  which 
was  never  entirelv  lifted  from  the  hearts  of  the 
Poles.  As  all  the  world  knows  now,  the  Rus- 
sians at  the  beginning  of  the  war  did  not  antici- 
pate the  holding  of  Warsaw  at  all,  for  it  was  be- 

81 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

lieved  that  the  sentiment  of  the  population  of 
Poland  would  be  such  as  to  make  it  inadvis- 
able for  the  Czar  to  try  and  defend  the  country 
against  what  it  was  believed  would  be  a  Ger- 
man avalanche  across  the  frontier. 

But  contrary  to  the  opinion  of  most,  even  of 
the  Poles  themselves,  the  psychology  of  the 
population  crystallized  almost  over  night 
against  the  Teutons  and  overwhelmingly  in 
favor  of  the  Czar.  But  in  the  early  stages  of 
the  war  no  important  attempt  had  been 
planned  to  stay  the  tide  of  the  German  advance, 
with  the  result  that  by  October  1st  the  enemy 
was  sweeping  triumphantly  over  the  Polish 
plain,  while  each  day  the  hearts  of  the  inhabi- 
tants sank  lower  as  the  news  of  German  Uhlans 
everywhere  west  of  Warsaw  sifted  into  the 
town.  By  the  middle  of  the  month  the  enemy, 
with  five  or  six  corps  against  a  mere  handful  of 
Russians,  was  so  near  that  the  sound  of  the  guns 
echoed  through  the  streets  of  Warsaw  itself. 

Then  came  those  dramatic  days  when  the 

82 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

battle  raged  without  the  town  itself  and  the 
windows  of  the  houses  shook  with  the  deto- 
nation of  artillery,  while  the  streets  were 
filled  with  the  wounded  pouring  back  from  the 
line  of  battle.  Came  then  that  extraordinary 
moment  when  the  Russian  defense  was  prac- 
tically over  and  there  was  not  a  soul  in  Warsaw 
that  dared  hope  for  the  salvation  of  the  city. 
For  five  hours  on  this  critical  day  there  was  on 
one  front  not  a  single  organized  unit  or  a  bat- 
tery of  artillery  between  the  menaced  city  and 
the  Teuton  hordes.  The  prize  which  was  still 
to  cost  them  a  million  casualties  lay  within  their 
very  grasp,  yet  they  knew  it  not.  For  some  ex- 
traordinary reason  which  is  yet  to  be  explained 
the  Germans,  usually  so  well  informed,  hesi- 
tated, and  the  vacillation  of  a  few  hours  cost 
them  the  greatest  prize  of  the  war,  which 
slipped  from  their  hands  not  to  be  regained  for 
another  dreary  ten  months  of  effort  and  sacri- 
fice. Even  as  the  Germans  tarried  came  the 
news  that  the  Grand  Duke  had  said:  "War- 

83 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

saw  is  to  be  held  at  any  costs."  In  an  hour 
the  news  was  on  every  tongue  and  hope  flashed 
once  more  on  every  face.  Shattered  organi- 
zations were  licked  into  shape,  and  by  night- 
fall the  resistance  abandoned  at  noon  was 
taken  up  again.  The  next  day  the  columns 
of  relief  began  to  arrive.  Surely  no  more 
dramatic  sight  has  ever  been  witnessed  in 
history  than  the  arrival  of  Pie  vie' s  army. 
Coming  in  solid  trains  at  express  schedule,  the 
grimy  Siberians  who  had  been  fighting  for  weeks 
in  Poland  and  Galicia  and  had  been  snatched 
out  of  the  fighting  line  on  the  San  for  this  emer- 
gency arrived  at  Praga  (across  the  river  from 
Warsaw),  and,  leaping  from  their  box  cars,  they 
moved  across  the  old  steel  bridge  of  the  Vistula 
and  swung  down  the  Jerasalumskaia  with 
their  bands  playing  and  banners  flying,  while 
their  artillery  crossed  the  new  bridge  a  mile 
farther  up  the  stream  at  a  gallop,  caissons 
groaning  with  full  loads  of  shrapnel  shell. 
Could  anything  be  more  dramatic  than  these 

84 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

unshaven,  dirty  warriors  pouring  through  the 
town,  with  the  Polish  population  stripping  the 
flower  shops  to  throw  blossoms  in  their  path- 
way and  deck  these  stained  and  worn  veter- 
ans with  garlands?  By  nightfall  they  were  in 
the  fighting  line,  and  the  thunder  that  shook 
the  streets  was  from  Russian  guns  and  not  from 
German.  For  three  days  the  Russian  troops 
poured  through  the  town.  The  crisis  was 
passed  and  the  German  invasion  for  the  mo- 
ment stayed.  From  October  20th  until  mid- 
dle November  Warsaw  breathed  easy,  for  it 
was  believed  that  the  German  menace  was 
gone  for  good.  Then  began  the  second  great 
invasion  of  Poland,  this  time  by  a  huge  army, 
and  from  that  day  to  the  5th  of  August  no  man 
could  say  what  would  be  the  fate  of  Warsaw. 
By  December  15th  the  Germans  were  ham- 
mering at  the  Bzura  line,  later  to  become 
famous  in  the  war.  On  the  18th  the  German 
press  announced  a  great  victory  west  of  War- 
saw and  school  children  were  given  a  holiday 

85 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

to  celebrate  what  was  announced  would  be  in 
history — a  day  that  would  go  down  in  the 
records  with  such  names  as  Salaniis, Leipzig,  and 
Waterloo.  Again  in  Warsaw  was  the  frantic 
apprehension  of  uncertainty.  "The  Germans 
will  be  here  any  day,"  we  who  were  again  in 
Warsaw  in  this  crisis  were  told  by  the  popula- 
tion. But  again  came  reinforcements,  and 
again  the  German  hopes  were  blasted  and  their 
armies  hurled  back  over  the  Bzura  for  the  long 
months  of  trench  warfare  that  lay  before  them. 
In  latter  January  came  the  fearful  at- 
tacks on  the  Bolimov  positions,  where  we 
were  told  the  Germans  concentrated  600  guns 
and  ten  divisions  on  a  front  of  a  few  miles. 
Again  Warsaw  heard  the  roar  of  guns  and 
again  the  streets  were  filled  with  wounded 
pouring  back  to  the  hospitals.  Again  came 
reinforcements,  and  this  crisis,  too,  was  passed. 
But  even  as  Warsaw  sighed  with  relief  came 
the  news  of  a  great  German  movement  in  East 
Prussia  followed  by  a  still  more  acute  menace 

86 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

from  the  German  frontier  at  Mlawa.  For  the 
third  or  fourth  time  trains  from  Petrograd 
were  discontinued,  and  the  meek  in  heart  again 
took  refuge  in  flight,  and  for  a  few  days  hope 
once  more  faded  as  reports  of  the  German 
advance  on  Przasnys  came  in  from  the  north. 
Then  came  a  few  tense  days.  Once  more  the 
Grand  Duke  searched  his  front  for  reinforce- 
ments, and  once  again  the  Germans  were 
checked,  and  this  time  thrown  back  clear  to 
their  own  frontier,  leaving  countless  dead  and 
15,000  prisoners  in  the  Russian  hands.  Thus 
with  the  coming  of  spring  hope  blossomed 
anew  in  Warsaw,  and  even  the  most  pessimistic 
began  to  believe  that  the  German  advance  was 
finally  checked.  Thus  passed  the  month  of 
April,  and  then  came  the  German  avalanche  in 
Galicia  with  the  steady  advances  which  took 
the  Austro-German  armies  well  west  of  War- 
saw and  on  their  southern  flank.  With  the 
first  attacks  on  Loesche  and  the  threat  on 
Brest-Litowsk  the  hearts  of  the  Poles   sank. 

87 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Then  came  the  news  of  the  stubborn  defense 
there  and  the  approximate  check  given  to 
the  Germans.  For  two  days  Warsaw  smiled, 
when  news  from  the  north  brought  gloom  to 
every  face.  The  crossing  of  the  Narew  and 
the  advance  on  Wyszkow  was  responsible 
for  the  evacuation.  The  sight  of  the  post- 
office  closing  up  and  machines  being  dis- 
mantled for  the  copper  in  the  machinery  pro- 
duced a  profound  gloom  which  silenced  even 
the  most  optimistic  ones  in  the  city.  With  the 
approach  of  the  enemy,  aeroplanes  again 
dotted  the  sky  above  Warsaw,  and  hardly  a 
day  passed  that  bombs  were  not  dropped  on 
Warsaw  killing  or  wounding  civilians,  men, 
women,  and  children.  I  have  never  been  able 
to  understand  the  wantonness  of  this  proceed- 
ing, because  I  have  never  seen  bombs  cause  any- 
thing but  curiosity  in  Warsaw.  In  all  the  air 
raids  that  I  have  known  of  or  seen,  not  one  ever 
caused  even  the  semblance  of  a  panic  in  the 
city. 

88 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

While  the  fight  was  raging  on  the  Narew 
the  evacuation  continued  apace.  The 
wounded  were  trundled  out  of  the  hospitals 
and  sent  eastward  on  the  trains,  while  for  the 
first  time  one  saw  the  roads  behind  Warsaw 
crowded  with  divisional  transport  going  to  the 
rear.  Field  hospitals  that  had  been  before 
Warsaw  now  began  to  drift  back,  and  the  Red 
Cross  trains  that  formerly  had  their  head- 
quarters west  of  Warsaw  now  spent  the  nights 
east  of  the  river.  Personally  I  have  never 
been  a  pessimist,  but  by  the  31st  of  July  I  was 
coming  to  that  state  of  mind  which  could  not 
be  described  as  optimistic.  Then  came  an- 
other change  in  sentiment.  It  was  known 
that  the  Russians  had  checked  the  enemy  at 
Wyszkow  and  thrown  them  back  ten  miles. 
At  once  the  Przasnys  campaign  in  March  was 
recalled  when  the  Germans  had  been  thrown 
back  in  the  full  tide  of  their  advance,  and  once 
again  one  heard  people  saying  that  the  crisis 
was    passed    and    that    Warsaw    would    yet 

89 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

weather  the  storm.  In  the  meantime  the  roar 
of  guns  from  the  south,  which  had  been  echoing 
through  the  streets,  began  to  die  away,  and  it 
was  known  that  a  German  advance  on  the 
Thirty-sixth  Corps  south  of  the  city  had  been 
hurled  back  with  heavy  losses.  Similar  feelers 
on  the  Blonie  line  were  known  to  have  come  to 
abrupt  and  untimely  ends  for  the  Germans. 
Warsaw  picked  up  hope  again — a  hope  that 
soared  when  it  became  known  that  sanitary 
trains  that  had  been  sent  away  were  coming 
back,  and  the  flow  of  transport  going  east  had 
ceased  and  some  of  it  had  actually  started 
back.  "  Besides, "  one  was  told, "  the  staff  of  the 
Second  Army  is  still  in  town."  Personally  I 
believed  that  the  gravest  danger  was  passed, 
for  it  seemed  incredible  that  the  Germans 
could  keep  developing  reinforcements  in  suffi- 
cient volume  to  keep  up  the  fury  of  their 
attacks  much  longer.  Thus  for  the  last  time 
hope   reigned  in  Warsaw  on  July  30,   1915. 


90 


X 

THE  LAST  STRAW 

By  July  26th  the  Germans  by  their  furi- 
ous attacks  north  and  south  had  gradually 
drawn  against  themselves  or  the  Austrians, 
in  one  quarter  or  another  of  the  extended 
front,  practically  everything  that  the  Russians 
had  available.  During  this  same  time  pres- 
sure was  being  exerted  in  the  Baltic  provinces, 
with  varying  degrees  of  intensity,  no  doubt 
with  the  intention  of  preventing  shifting  of 
troops  from  one  point  of  the  Russian  front  to 
another.  I  shall  not  dwell  on  the  campaign 
in  the  north  at  this  time,  because  I  was  not 
there  then  and  my  observations  would  have 
no  more  value  than  anybody  else's  opinion 
on  the  same  subject.  Up  to  this  time  I  had 
been  based  on  Warsaw,  and  all  of  my  impedi- 

91 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

menta  were  at  the  Bristol  Hotel.  By  the  26th 
I  felt  moderately  sure  that  neither  the  Narew 
line  nor  the  Chelm-Lublin  front  could  be 
broken  sufficiently  abruptly  to  make  the 
danger  on  Warsaw  immediate.  I  was  at  this 
time  travelling  in  the  company  of  Lieut. 
Sherman  Miles,  the  American  military  attache, 
and  I  may  say  in  passing  the  most  competent 
one  I  have  ever  known.  We  were  both  well 
posted  on  the  Russian  position  and  agreed 
as  to  the  failure  of  the  Germans  in  their  major 
objectives.  For  the  moment  the  situation 
then  was  good.  I  have  often  found  the  best 
way  to  estimate  the  German  plans  is  to  ask 
one's  self  what  one  would  do  if  one  were  the 
Germans  and  knew  what  the  Russians  knew 
about  themselves.  This  is  what  we  did  on 
July  26th.  We  knew  that  the  Russians  to 
strengthen  themselves  north  and  south  had 
weakened  their  line  south  of  Warsaw  along  the 
Vistula.  This  they  did  because  the  Vistula 
was,   with   its   high   eastern   banks,   easy   to 

92 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

defend  and  required  the  smallest  number 
of  men  to  hold  it.  A  glance  at  the  map  will 
show  that  a  crossing  of  the  Vistula  south  of 
Warsaw  would  enable  the  Germans,  if  they 
had  plenty  of  cavalry,  to  reach  the  important 
junction  of  Novaminsk  in  a  stiff  day's  march,  as 
it  was  actually  a  shorter  distance  from  the 
Vistula  to  this  point  than  from  Novaminsk 
to  Warsaw.  I  therefore  moved  my  base  to 
Novaminsk  itself,  which  with  its  intersection 
of  highways  gave  an  excellent  chance  to  get 
about  in  a  motor  in  the  shortest  possible  time. 

On  July  27th-28th  the  Germans  crossed  the 
Vistula  near  the  mouth  of  the  Radomka 
River,  or  within  ten  miles  of  the  point  we  had 
estimated  two  days  before  as  being  the  weak- 
est in  the  Russian  defenses. 

From  now  on  things  moved  rapidly.  The 
first  crossing  probably  did  not  include  more 
than  a  division  and  a  half  of  the  enemy,  and 
this  was  checked  by  troops  hurried  up  from 
Ewarts'  Army.     There  was  a  flurry  at  head- 

93 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

quarters,  for  it  was  clear  to  all  that  the  Ger- 
mans had  found  the  Russian  heel  of  Achilles. 
Yet  with  the  enemy  fighting  fiercely  and  losing 
heavily  north  and  south  in  their  important 
operations  on  the  Narew  and  Chelm-Lublin 
line  it  did  not  seem  possible  that  any  move- 
ment which  could  be  developed  on  a  third 
front  could  command  sufficient  backing  in 
new  troops  to  be  more  than  a  reconnaissance. 
On  the  28th  the  headway  gained  was  checked, 
and  reports  of  this  result  in  the  fighting  found 
answer  in  the  Warsaw  optimism  of  the  30th. 
Then  came  news  that  another  German  corps 
had  arrived  and  was  preparing  to  cross  the 
river  at  about  the  same  point.  It  was  at 
once  clear  that  the  advance  of  these  corps 
on  Novaminsk  would  wreck  the  whole  defense 
of  Warsaw.  The  answer  of  AlexierT,  who  was 
in  supreme  command  on  this  front,  was  to  ex- 
tend the  line  of  the  Warsaw  defense,  making 
three  corps  do  the  work  previously  assigned 
to  four,  and  the  fourth,  which  was  the  Thirty- 

94 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

sixth  Reserve  Corps,  by  the  process  of  exten- 
sion of  front  was  squeezed  over  the  river  at 
Gorakalwarja  and  effected  the  double  purpose 
of  getting  out  of  the  Warsaw  salient  itself; 
but  at  the  same  time  it  came  in  between  the 
advancing  Germans  and  the  line  of  the  Russian 
retreat  from  Warsaw.  Conditions  were  alarm- 
ing when  this  corps  came  over,  but  within 
twenty-four  hours  it  had  administered  a 
serious  slap  to  the  enemy  and  driven  them 
back  toward  the  river  in  some  places,  while  in 
practically  every  place  it  was  holding  its 
own.  But  now  again  was  felt  the  pinch  of 
want  of  ammunition,  but  notwithstanding  the 
meagre  diet  of  the  guns  the  battle  was  going 
decidedly  in  favor  of  the  army  of  the  Czar. 

On  Monday,  August  2d,  I  motored  from 
Novaminsk  to  the  staff  of  Alexieff  to  get  some 
gasoline  and  tires,  and  there  learned  that  the 
optimism,  for  which  I  have  been  severely 
criticised  ever  since,  was  up  to  this  time  felt 
by   the   General  Staff.     General  Goulevitch, 

95 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

chief-of-staff  of  Alexieff,  with  whom  I  talked 
this  Monday  morning  as  we  stood  out  in  the 
sunshine  in  front  of  his  headquarters  told  me, 
and  I  quote  his  exact  words:  "Had  you 
come  to  me  before  two  o'clock  this  morning 
I  should  have  told  you  that  we  felt  almost 
sure  of  saving  Warsaw." 

What  had  happened  to  break  this  optimism 
was  this :  The  Germans  had  suddenly  devel- 
oped two  additional  corps  not  taken  from 
any  other  point  on  the  Russian  front  and 
these  were  already  crossing  the  Vistula  about 
east  of  Garwolin,  a  little  city  on  the  road 
between  Warsaw  and  Lublin.  This  made 
four  enemy  corps  against  not  above  a  corps 
and  a  brigade  or  two  of  Russians  to  hold 
them  back.  Besides  these  new  enemy  forma- 
tions it  was  learned  that  three  Austrian  di- 
visions, said  to  be  coming  from  the  Serbian 
theatre  of  operations,  were  on  their  way  to 
this  same  offensive.  This  meant,  then,  that  with 
the  enemy  forces  already  on  the  ground  and 

96 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

with  those  due  to  arrive  shortly  the  Germans 
would  have  approximately  five  and  a  half  corps 
against  a  shade  over  one  Russian  unit  to  defend 
this  spot  in  the  line.  It  was  clear,  then,  from 
this  moment  that  Warsaw  was  lost,  but  the  reali- 
zation of  this  fact  brought  neither  panic  nor 
excitement.  The  Russian  commander  knew 
his  troops  and  his  army  and  made  his  plans 
quietly  and  without  excitement.  Before  War- 
saw there  now  stood  three  corps  only.  It  was 
clear  that  to  weaken  that  front  meant  the 
certainty  of  a  break  in  the  Blonie  line,  and  it 
was  equally  obvious  that  unless  the  corps 
south  of  Warsaw  was  supported  promptly  it 
would  be  driven  back  and  the  line  from  War- 
saw to  the  rear  menaced  by  the  enemy. 

Every  one  in  Warsaw  who  for  months  had 
been  speculating  as  to  how  the  huge  army 
standing  before  the  city  would  get  out  in 
case  of  the  giving  up  of  Warsaw  had  always 
imagined  that  the  main  body  of  the  army 
would  pass  through  the  city.     We  had  pic- 

97 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

tured  scenes  of  confusion,  with  bridges  over- 
loaded and  chaos  and  panic  everywhere. 
Nothing  of  this  ever  happened  at  all.  Pon- 
toon bridges  had  already  been  thrown  across 
the  river  in  many  points  both  north  and 
south  of  Warsaw,  and  very  little  ever  passed 
through  the  town  at  all.  When  it  became 
clear  that  the  crossing  of  the  Vistula  was  in 
reality  the  last  straw  to  the  defense,  the  front 
was  again  extended,  permitting  the  Thirty- 
fifth  Corps  to  slide  out  over  the  river,  and  by 
joining  the  Thirty-sixth  already  there  inter- 
pose an  obstacle  to  further  German  advances. 
The  Fifth  Siberian  Corps,  which  had  been 
holding  the  northern  end  of  the  line  next  the 
Vistula  near  Novogeorgievsk,  never  came 
to  WTarsaw  at  all,  but  slipped  over  the  river 
near  that  point,  effecting  a  movement  anal- 
ogous to  that  being  performed  by  the  corps 
in  the  south;  that  is,  it  extricated  itself  from 
Warsaw  and  at  the  same  time  came  into  the 
line  defending  the  Narew  and  by  so  doing 

98 


VICTORY  m  DEFEAT 

definitely  checked  any  further  sudden  ad- 
vance which  the  Germans  might  have  devel- 
oped there  as  a  by-product  of  the  confusion 
of  the  moment  which  they  undoubtedly 
hoped  and  planned  for  but  which  actually 
never  came  to  pass  at  all.  The  last  remaining 
corps  then,  which  was  the  Sixth  European 
Corps,  was  left  spread  out  like  a  fan  in  front 
of  Warsaw.  It  is  difficult  to  trace  the  exact 
movements  of  this  corps;  some  of  it  crossed 
on  pontoons  south  of  the  town,  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  bulk  of  it  was  either  in  the  out- 
skirts of  Warsaw  or  actually  crossing  the  river 
by  six  that  night.  The  last  formations  which 
had  been  holding  the  rear  guard  outside  of 
Warsaw  marched  quietly  through  the  town 
between  ten  and  midnight  without  much  ex- 
citement or  chaos  as  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  learn.  By  1 :30  Warsaw  was  evacuated  by 
practically  the  entire  army  save  possibly  a  mea- 
gre rear  guard.  At  a  little  before  three  the 
last  automobile  attached  to  the  staff  of  the 

99 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Second  Army,  which  had  left  two  or  three 
days  before,  motored  out  over  the  Vistula 
bridge,  and  at  three  in  the  morning  the 
bridges  were  blown  up.  At  6:00  a.  m.  the 
first  German  troops  arrived  on  the  banks  of 
the  Vistula.  Thus  did  the  Russians  give  up 
the  Polish  Capital  after  just  one  year  of  the 
war. 


100 


XI 

THE  FALL  OF  WARSAW 

In  this  modest  series  of  the  operations  on 
the  eastern  front  I  have  not  intruded  personal 
experiences  except  in  such  degree  as  to  indi- 
cate my  sources  of  information  at  various 
times.  At  this  stage  in  the  war  descriptive 
matter  is  largely  stale,  as  the  world  is  long 
since  satiated  with  accounts  of  the  atmosphere 
of  war.  I  have  already  described  within  my 
capacity  the  military  movements  leading  up 
to  the  evacuation,  but  to  understand  the 
situation  at  this  time  and  after  it  does  seem 
worth  while  to  give  a  little  picture  of  the  army 
and  of  Warsaw  on  the  last  day  it  remained  in 
Russian  hands.  I  had  spent  the  night  of 
August  2d  in  the  Bristol  Hotel,  but  the 
constant  alarms  and  announcements  that  the 

101 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

bridges  were  about  to  be  blown  up  had  not 
been  conducive  of  either  rest  or  serenity.  I 
have  never  known  a  place  where  rumors 
based  on  nothing  spread  with  such  thorough- 
ness in  so  short  a  time.  The  last  night  I  slept 
in  the  Bristol  just  as  I  was  getting  into  bed 
about  2:00  in  the  morning  two  excited 
Poles  burst  in  to  inform  me  that  the  bridges 
were  to  be  blown  up  in  two  hours  and  that  all 
rail  communication  had  been  cut  that  after- 
noon. I  did  not  believe  it,  and  after  turning 
them  out  went  to  bed.  I  was  awakened  at 
6:00  by  a  friend  in  his  pajamas  who  broke  into 
the  room  with  the  inspiring  information  that 
the  bridges  were  being  blown  up.  As  my  mo- 
tor was  the  only  means  of  transportation  on 
which  we  could  depend  to  keep  us  out  of  the 
clutches  of  the  enemy,  and  as  it  was  standing  in 
a  garage  on  the  Warsaw  side  of  the  Vistula,  I 
felt  that  I  must  get  up.  The  alarm,  however, 
was  premature,  for  the  noise  was  not  the 
blowing  up  of  the  bridges  at  all,  but  only  a 

102 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

couple  of  "early-bird"  German  taubes  out 
dropping  a  little  morning  hate  on  Warsaw  in 
the  shape  of  bombs  which  were  bursting  about 
town  while  the  sky  was  filled  with  the  smoke 
from  Russian  shrapnel  breaking  above  us  in 
the  blue.  Thus  I  finally  left  Warsaw  as  a 
sleeping  base  because,  though  war  is  enlivening, 
it  is  still  necessary  to  get  some  rest.  WTe  had 
been  living  in  a  palace  at  Novaminsk  and  so 
decided  to  sleep  there  in  the  future,  but  failed 
in  this  anticipation  because  the  staff  of  the 
Second  Army,  which  left  the  same  day,  took 
over  our  palace  and  left  us  only  a  room  in  a 
small  house. 

It  was  on  the  same  day  that  we  learned  from 
the  staff  that  the  game  was  up  as  far  as  War- 
saw was  concerned.  Even  if  one  had  not 
been  told  verbally,  the  roads  needed  no 
interpretation.  Mile  after  mile  in  unbroken 
column,  plodding  through  the  dust  that  rose 
above  the  road  in  clouds,  was  the  endless 
column    of    caissons,    transport    carts,    field 

103 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

kitchens,  and  the  thousand  and  other  odds 
and  ends  that  belong  to  an  army.  But  in  this 
retreat,  as  in  the  many,  many  others  that  I 
have  accompanied  or  rather  preceded  in  Rus- 
sia, there  was  nothing  in  the  faces  of  the  men 
to  indicate  whether  they  were  retiring  or  ad- 
vancing. 

Wednesday,  August  4th,  Warsaw's  last  day, 
we  left  early  in  my  motor  and  ran  down  to  the 
position  where  the  Thirty-sixth  Corps,  now  re- 
inforced by  the  Thirty -fifth,  was  standing  be- 
tween the  Germans  and  the  line  of  retreat.  It 
was  a  perfectly  still  day,  with  hardly  a  cloud  in 
the  sky.  Save  for  the  dull  booming  of  the  guns 
over  on  the  river  there  was  absolute  peace  every- 
where. During  the  morning  there  was  scarcely 
any  movement  on  the  Lublin-Warsaw  Road, 
which  was  the  line  of  communication  of  the 
Thirty -fifth  and  Thirty-sixth  Corps.  The  world 
outside  that  was  waiting  eagerly  for  news  from 
Warsaw  no  doubt  imagined  scenes  of  chaos  and 
confusion.     Every  mile  or  two  on  the  road  one 

104 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

met  a  few  belated  refugees  plodding  quietly 
along,  but  otherwise  there  was  nothing  to 
indicate  that  the  last  great  drama  of  Warsaw 
was  being  enacted  under  our  very  noses. 
By  noon  there  was  more  sign  of  life,  for  guns 
began  to  come  back  from  the  front,  each 
marred  and  soiled  by  hard  usage  with  the 
accompanying  caissons,  alas,  now  quite  empty. 
Battery  after  battery  I  passed  on  the  road — 
coming  back  at  a  time  when  each  was  worth 
its  weight  in  gold.  Why?  No  shells.  The 
Germans  say  the  lack  of  shells  was  exaggerated 
by  the  Russians  as  an  excuse  for  defeat.  The 
Germans  are  mistaken  in  thinking  this.  I 
am  sure  of  this,  because  I  was  there  and  saw 
it  myself.  We  lunched  that  day  with  the 
general  commanding  the  Thirty-sixth  Corps. 
Not  far  away  the  boom  of  guns  and  occasional 
roll  of  rifle  and  machine-gun  fire  told  the 
story.  Yet  the  war  was  hardly  mentioned 
at  all  by  any  of  us  during  the  lunch.  From 
this  one  can  gather  some  idea  as  to  the  amount 

105 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

of  confusion  that  prevailed.  The  general 
had  suggested  that  we  go  forward  toward  the 
positions  that  afternoon,  and  horses  were 
actually  saddled  and  in  readiness  for  the  trip 
when  some  intuition  resolved  us  to  alter  our 
program  and  return  to  Warsaw,  for  some- 
thing told  me  that  the  end  was  nearer  than 
the  scenes  of  quiet  on  the  Lublin- Warsaw 
Road  indicated.  So  we  left  at  once  and 
started  back  for  the  town.  But  now  the  scene 
was  quite  changed  from  that  we  had  wit- 
nessed in  the  morning:  the  evacuation  was 
well  under  way  and  everywhere  one  met  the 
troops  that  were  coining  over  the  river.  At 
one  point  in  the  road  I  stopped  the  motor  to 
talk  with  the  soldiers  of  the  Thirty-fifth 
Corps,  the  last  unit  of  which  had  just  crossed 
the  river  that  morning  and  had  been  badly 
dusted.  The  colonel  of  the  regiment  was  sit- 
ting on  his  horse  in  the  middle  of  a  field  with 
notebook  in  hand  checking  up  his  losses.  The 
soldiers  of  his  command  were  lying  along  the 

106 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

grassy  bank  by  the  roadside,  many  of  them 
falling  asleep  the  moment  they  sat  down.  A 
field  kitchen  was  halted  in  the  road  and  the  few 
soldiers  that  were  not  asleep  were  lining  up  to 
get  what  was  perhaps  their  first  ration  since 
the  night  before.  Many  were  in  bloody 
bandages  and  all  worn  and  haggard.  "Here," 
I  thought,  "one  will  find  the  morale  of  the 
Russians  at  its  lowest  ebb.  These  men  have 
been  fighting  for  days  and  have  lost."  So  I 
called  up  a  great  strapping  private  soldier. 
Wearily  he  got  to  his  feet  and  came  over  to  the 
side  of  the  motor.  His  face  was  gray  with 
fatigue  and  his  eyes  glassy  for  want  of  rest. 
"How  do  you  feel  now  about  the  war?"  I 
asked  him.  "Do  you  want  peace?"  He  looked 
at  me  in  a  dazed  kind  of  way  and  replied  as 
he  shuffled  his  feet  uneasily:  "We  are  all  very 
tired."  "But  still,  what  do  you  want  to  do 
about  the  war?"  I  persisted.  The  Russians 
are  not  quick  to  reply  to  questions  under  any 
circumstances.     For    a    long    time    the    tired 

107 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

soldier  looked  at  me  and  then  for  the  second 
time  he  said:  "I  am  very  tired.  We  are  all 
very  tired."  "Well,  then,"  I  said,  "do  you 
want  to  make  peace  and  leave  the  Germans 
in  possession  of  Warsaw?"  For  a  long  time 
he  stood  in  the  hot  afternoon  sun  looking  at  the 
dust  in  the  road  and  then  replied:  "I  am 
very  tired.  So  are  we  all.  The  Germans 
are  taking  Warsaw  to-day.  This  is  not  as  it 
should  be.  I  think  I  am  a  better  soldier 
than  the  German.  With  rifles  and  shells  we 
can  always  beat  him.  It  is  not  right  that  we 
should  give  up  Warsaw."  He  paused  for  a 
moment  and  then  looked  up  with  his  eyes 
flashing  as  he  finished  in  one  quick  burst: 
'Never!  I  am  tired,  but  I  want  to  go  back 
and  fight  some  more.  We  cannot  leave  the 
Germans  in  Warsaw." 

I  cannot,  of  course,  speak  for  the  psychology 
of  the  Russians  who  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
enemy  this  day  and  later.  Naturally  I  had 
no  chance  to  talk  to  them.     Of  the  ones  that 

108 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

I  did  see  and  talk  with,  this  man  I  have 
quoted  was  a  type.  When  we  turned  into 
the  main  road  from  Sedlice  to  Warsaw  the 
evacuation  was  under  full  head.  I  suppose 
that  during  the  entire  retreat,  this  afternoon 
was  the  nearest  to  confusion;  how  little  this 
was,  I  think,  is  made  clear  from  the  fact  that 
though  I  was  going  back  to  town  and  the  tide 
was  flowing  the  other  way  there  was  never 
such  density  as  to  stop  my  motor  or  cause 
me  to  reduce  speed  under  fifteen  miles  an 
hour.  This,  then,  was  the  "rout"  of  the 
Russians  at  its  high  tide!  It  was  after  six 
when  we  came  over  the  hills  and  looked  down 
on  Warsaw  that  so  many,  many  times  before 
had  greeted  us  from  the  returns  of  scores  of 
trips.  But  now  a  glance  showed  that  the 
city,  which  we  who  had  followed  its  destinies 
for  a  year  had  come  to  love,  was  doomed. 
At  the  end  of  the  beautiful  new  bridge  hung 
one  of  our  observation  balloons,  while  a  couple 

of  miles  up  the  river  the  big  German  shells 

109 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

were  bursting  with  terrific  detonations,  liter- 
ally spurting  buildings  into  the  air.  Our  own 
batteries  down  to  their  last  shots  replied 
only  occasionally,  or,  as  in  many  places,  not  at 
all.  Warsaw  was  passing  from  us  and  passing 
rapidly,  and  as  I  stood  on  the  new  bridge 
watching  the  bursting  shells  through  my 
glasses  my  mind  ran  back  over  the  past  eight 
months.  I  thought  of  the  tens  of  thousands 
of  our  heroic  troops  that  lay  buried  on  the 
Bzura  line.  I  recalled  the  sacrifices  of  the 
Siberians  in  October  to  save  the  war.  And  as 
it  all  passed  through  my  mind  my  heart  grew 
heavy.  It  was  as  though  something  near 
and  dear  to  me  were  dying  before  my  eyes. 
But  the  German  shells  were  moving  slowly 
nearer.  Evidently  some  of  their  batteries 
were  being  advanced.  One  of  those  big  ten- 
inch  shells  on  the  highway  and  we  might  not 
get  our  car  out.  It  was  no  time  for  sentiment. 
The  bridges  were  mined  and  guards  stood 
around    the    electric    connections.     I    dared 

110 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

not  take  the  car  into  town  lest  a  premature 
explosion  leave  us  stranded  with  it  on  the  west 
side.  So  Sherman  Miles  and  I  went  over  the 
bridge  on  foot  and  took  a  cab  to  the  old  Bristol 
Hotel,  where  we  had  been  living  for  months. 
It  was  utterly  deserted  but  for  the  staff  of  the 
hotel.  All  guests,  we  were  told,  had  been 
cleared  out  early  in  the  afternoon  by  the 
orders  of  the  military.  The  employees  of  the 
hotel,  mostly  Poles,  stood  about  like  mourners 
at  a  funeral.  The  great  lobby  which  we  had 
known  of  yore  filled  with  officers  and  well- 
dressed  women  was  silent  and  empty  but 
for  the  reverberation  of  the  German-made 
thunder  that  sounded  ever  on  our  ears.  We 
went  up  on  the  roof  and  took  the  last  look. 
In  the  west  columns  of  smoke  were  rolling  up. 
The  traffic  in  the  street  was  about  as  usual, 
though  there  was  a  peculiar  depression  every- 
where. After  snatching  a  few  sandwiches 
we  left  the  hotel  and  drove  to  the  end  of  the 
new  bridge.     This  was  literally  the  eleventh 

ill 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

hour  in  Warsaw  yet  there  was  less  of  a  crush 
on  the  bridge  in  this  moment  than  there  had 
been  ten  days  before,  when  the  civil  govern- 
ment had  left.  While  we  were  crossing  the 
bridge  four  bombs  were  dropped  from  aero- 
planes. Many  of  the  taubes  were  speeding 
about  in  the  gray  dome  of  the  early  evening, 
and  hardly  a  minute  passed  that  a  high  ex- 
plosive dropped  from  above  did  not  shake  the 
windows  with  its  report.  A  taube  flew  over 
the  bridge  as  we  crossed  and  dropped  a  bomb 
which  fortunately  fell  in  Praga  and  not  on  us. 
Russian  batteries  outside  the  town  were  pour- 
ing shrapnel  up  into  the  sky.  I  saw  one 
German  aeroplane  skim  out  of  a  cloud  of 
fleecy  white  smoke  wherein  I  counted  the 
bursts  of  fourteen  Russian  shrapnel  at  the 
same  time.  At  the  end  of  the  bridge  I  found 
my  motor.  My  chauffeur's  sister-in-law,  so  he 
told  me,  had  had  her  arm  blown  off  at  the 
shoulder  by  a  bomb  dropped  from  an  aero- 
plane   the    night    before.     She    died    shortly 

112 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

after.  A  bomb  which  fell  at  the  intersection 
of  two  of  the  main  streets  killed  or  wounded 
twenty-five  civilians.  Thus  did  the  flyers 
make  merry  over  the  city  which  within  forty- 
eight  hours  was  to  be  theirs.  Why  do  they  do 
it?  I  have  never  heard  any  adequate  explana- 
tion. As  it  began  to  grow  dark  we  moved 
eastward,  and  as  the  grays  of  twilight  began  to 
fade  I  stood  on  the  hill  at  Verstpost  13  (mile 
7)  on  the  Moscow  Road  and  watched  the 
quick  zigzag  bursts  of  the  German  shrapnel 
now  breaking  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town. 
In  the  road  plodded  the  long  line  of  transport 
now  mingled  with  infantry.  Tired  and  dis- 
appointed, no  doubt,  but  never  demoralized. 
As  darkness  came  on  we  turned  eastward  and 
saw  the  crest  of  the  hill  shut  out  from  our 
sight  the  golden  dome  of  the  Greek  church  in 
Warsaw.  A  few  hours  later  the  bridges  were 
blown  up  and  Warsaw  was  no  longer  Russian. 


113 


XII 

WARSAW,  THE  GERMAN  ZENITH 

The  blowing  up  of  the  Vistula  bridges 
marked  the  end  of  a  distinct  phase  in  the  war, 
a  phase  which  I  believe  history  will  ultimately 
judge  as  the  zenith  of  the  German  strength 
in  this  war,  for  viewed  from  a  wider  perspective 
the  movements  of  the  Teutons  from  that 
time,  regardless  of  changes  of  lines  on  the  map, 
have  been  a  good  deal  of  an  anti-climax,  but 
of  this  I  will  treat  later  on.  When  Warsaw 
fell  I  had  been  with  the  Russian  armies  for 
exactly  ten  months,  and  I  trust  that  my 
friendliness  and  growing  affection  for  the  Rus- 
sians was  not  such  as  to  blind  me  to  the  merits 
and  virtues  of  the  enemy  during  this  period. 
Obviously  my  sympathies  were  with  the 
Allies,  otherwise  I  should  not  have  gone  with 

114 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

the  Russians  at  all  but  with  the  Central  Pow- 
ers, with  whom  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  it 
was  much  easier  to  make  a  connection  than 
with  the  armies  of  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas. 
My  own  opinion  at  the  fall  of  Warsaw  was 
that  it  was  the  wind  up  of  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  campaigns  in  history.  From  May 
until  August  5th,  or  for  approximately  three 
unbroken  months,  the  Germans,  with  a  forti- 
tude and  capacity  for  sacrifice  which  has  not 
been  exceeded  in  history,  had  been  conducting 
what  was  practically  a  continuous  battle. 
The  endurance  and  bravery  of  their  troops  is 
not  to  be  questioned,  and  up  to  that  time  I 
had  never  seen  a  sign  of  depression  or  weakening 
in  morale  among  the  German  prisoners  with 
whom  I  talked  on  every  occasion  possible.  I 
have  seen  them  on  practically  every  Russian 
front  during  this  campaign  (save  East  Prussia), 
and  though  I  was  never  in  sympathy  with  their 
campaign  I  never  failed  in  admiration  of  their 
spirit   and   independence   even   as   prisoners. 

115 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

I  remember  in  Tarnopol  seeing  two  hundred 
captured  the  day  before.  These  men  had 
arrived  from  France  at  noon  the  preceding 
day  and  were  prisoners  at  3:00  in  the  after- 
noon. All  were  worn  and  haggard,  several 
without  shirts  and  many  without  helmets  or 
caps.  I  have  never  seen  men  in  a  worse 
state  of  physical  exhaustion,  yet  they  marched 
through  town  with  eyes  to  the  front  and  a 
pride  of  themselves  and  an  independence  which 
could  not  have  been  surpassed  even  by  troops 
returning  from  a  victorious  field  of  battle. 

The  blow  which  fell  in  Galicia  was  ap- 
parently perfectly  planned  from  every  point 
of  view,  and  backed  by  the  superb  German 
railroad  systems,  there  never  was  a  falter  in 
three  months  for  the  want  of  either  men  or 
ammunition.  As  far  as  one  on  the  Russian 
side  could  see  there  was  never  a  mistake  in 
strategy  or  a  serious  "  bull "  in  tactics.  Every- 
thing had  been  foreseen  and  planned  save  one 
item,  and  that  the  capacity  of  the  Russians  to 

116 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

absorb  defeat  and  pull  themselves  together. 
This  I  think  the  Germans  never  foresaw  and 
have  despaired  of  from  the  middle  of  May  un- 
til the  present  time  with  a  constantly  increas- 
ing exasperation  and  annoyance.  As  one 
German  said  after  the  Galician  drive:  "It  is 
hopeless  fighting  against  men  who  do  not  play 
the  game  and  admit  their  defeat.  The  Rus- 
sians were  utterly  beaten  on  the  Dunajec,  and 
any  people  but  fools  would  have  recognized  it, 
but  instead  of  accepting  their  defeat  like  men 
they  apparently  ignore  it  and  in  two  weeks  have 
apparently  forgotten  the  German  superiority 
and  are  ready  to  fight  all  over  again."  From 
talks  with  innumerable  prisoners  there  is  no 
question  in  my  mind  that  every  German 
soldier  believed  from  May  1st  that  the  capture 
of  Warsaw  represented  peace  with  Russia. 
Warsaw  had  come  to  represent  the  prize  of  the 
campaign,  and  from  the  German  point  of  view 
its  capture  must  represent  to  Russia  the  final 
failure  of  her  armies.     The  rest  of  the  war 

117 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

would  be  relatively  simple:  an  independent 
peace  with  Russia,  with  trade  agreements 
which  would  mean  limitless  resources  to  draw 
on  for  the  war  with  France,  against  whom 
the  entire  strength  in  the  east  could  be  sent 
and  Paris  taken  in  a  month.  Then  the  long 
and  slow  preparation  which  every  German 
hoped  would  mean  the  annihilation  of  Eng- 
land. From  this  point  of  view  the  outcome  of 
the  World  War  looked  bright  indeed  to  the 
troops  who  at  last  heard  that  the  great  prize 
was  within  their  grasp.  It  seems,  therefore, 
that  while  one  cannot  minimize  the  triumph 
of  the  Germans  in  actually  taking  War- 
saw after  so  many  months,  one  can  but  con- 
demn the  Germans  for  their  failure  to  know 
beforehand  that  the  capture  of  the  city  for 
which  they  made  such  endless  sacrifices  did 
not  spell  peace  at  all  but  only  what  has  proven 
to  be  the  beginning  of  what  is  in  reality  an 
entirely  new  war  against  Russia  under  con- 
ditions which  have  been  increasingly  disad- 

118 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

vantageous  to  the  Germans  and  improving 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Russians.  The 
armies  of  the  Warsaw  front  were  at  this  time 
under  the  command  of  Alexieff,  whose  keen 
mind  had  foreseen  every  contingency — a  man 
who  for  weeks  had  realized  the  possibility  of 
the  loss  of  the  Polish  salient  and  the  necessity 
of  withdrawal  to  a  line  in  the  heart  of  Russia 
itself.  Positions  had  been  prepared  at  many 
places  behind  Warsaw  which  might  be  de- 
fended as  checks  to  the  German  advance, 
which  would  enable  strong  rear  guards  to  hold 
back  the  Teutons  while  the  bulk  of  the  armies 
were  getting  out  of  Poland.  To  one  who  had 
studied  the  country  and  who  knew  the  weak- 
ness of  the  Russian  Army  at  this  time  what  fol- 
lowed was  no  surprise.  Warsaw,  even  as  the 
Dunajec  line  in  Galicia,  was  the  keystone  of 
a  front  nearly  a  thousand  miles  long.  The 
loss  of  this  salient  meant  the  starting  in  mo- 
tion of  the  entire  front.  It  meant  that  the  line 
as  a  whole  could  not  come  to  a  standstill  until 

119 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

every  unit  therein  could  rest  on  some  position 
which  would  afford  the  chance  of  making  a 
successful  defense.  The  weak  point,  as  I  was 
well  aware,  was  in  the  centre.  It  was  certain 
that  the  army  coming  out  of  Warsaw  could  not 
find  an  advantageous  position  short  of  the  Bug 
and  the  fortress  of  Brest-Litowsk.  The  latter 
point  I  had  visited  many  times  before,  and  hav- 
ing seen  its  antiquated  defenses  I  was  sure  that 
if  the  Germans  really  wanted  it  that  it  could  not 
resist  forty-eight  hours  after  the  heavy  guns  got 
to  work  on  its  old-fashioned  fortifications.  With 
the  centre  falling  back  to  or  beyond  the  Bug 
it  was  clear  that  all  the  hundred  and  one  places 
lying  west  of  Brest  would  go  as  a  by-product  of 
the  collapse  of  Warsaw  itself.  The  world  at 
large  seemed  to  experience  a  new  shock  every 
time  the  Germans  captured  a  new  town,  a 
shock  which  I  may  say  was  never  felt  in  the 
army  of  the  Russians,  for  everybody  knew  that 
the  retreat  once  started  would  not  terminate 
for  weeks.     Alexieff  had  planned  every  detail 

120 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

of  the  retreat  in  person  and  there  was  only 
one  point  in  the  whole  program  which 
caused  the  slightest  anxiety  to  the  friends  of 
Russia  at  the  front,  and  that  was  whether  or 
not  the  morale  of  the  army  after  three  con- 
secutive months  of  reverses  due  to  lack  of 
ammunition  and  of  rifles  could  stand  the  strain 
of  a  retreat  that  might  last  for  several  months. 
Having  been  with  the  Japanese  in  Manchuria 
and  there  becoming  familiar  with  the  extraor- 
dinary power  of  recuperation  of  the  Russians,  I 
felt  reasonably  confident  that  the  men  would 
not  break  and  the  critical  period  would  be  weath- 
ered and  that  the  army  would  eventually  get 
back  onto  a  line  where  it  could  settle  down  for  a 
sustained  period  of  replenishment.  Personally 
I  thought  that  this  line  would  be  as  far  east  as 
the  Dwina,  Berizina,  and  Dneiper  rivers 
and  was  agreeably  surprised  when  the  German 
initiative  spent  itself  far  west  of  this  river, 
line,  which  would  have  given  the  Teutons  an 
admirable  point  to  have  stopped  for  the  winter. 

121 


XIII 

THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  RETREAT  AND  THE 
POLITICAL  SITUATION 

From  the  time  that  Warsaw  fell  there  was  a 
period  of  great  anxiety  in  Russia  unalleviated 
by  news  from  the  front.  The  only  informa- 
tion one  received  from  Poland  and  the  battle- 
fields north  and  south  were  reports  that  leaked 
in  from  the  German  side.  The  loss  of  Ivan- 
grod  and  Novogeorgievsk  came  as  a  great  shock 
to  Petrograd,  though  just  why  it  should 
have  I  do  not  know,  for  both  were  doomed 
the  moment  Warsaw  fell.  Ivangrod  was  an 
old-fashioned  fortress  that  could  not  have 
lasted  a  day  against  a  heavy  artillery  attack. 
Its  evacuation  immediately  after  the  fall  of  the 
Polish  Capital  was  inevitable  and  passed  with- 
out any  notice  at  all  in  the  army.     Novoge- 

122 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

orgievsk  which  protected  Warsaw  from  the 
north  was  a  modern  fortress  and  held  out 
approximately  two  weeks.  This  strong  point 
on  the  important  line  of  railroad  from  East 
Prussia,  Mlawa,  and  Ciechanow  to  Praga  was 
a  block  on  the  line  of  advance  the  Germans 
must  follow  to  get  at  the  retreating  Russians. 
Had  it  fallen  the  day  Warsaw  did  it  is  probable 
that  none  of  that  army  would  have  got  out 
at  all.  This  war  has  shown  conclusively  that 
fortresses  must  be  regarded  as  checks  to  enemy 
advances  at  strategic  points  rather  than  as 
positions  that  can  be  held  indefinitely  and 
withstand  prolonged  sieges.  The  sacrifice  of 
Novogeorgievsk  and  its  garrison  was  of  course 
regrettable,  but  it  was  the  price  that  had  to 
be  paid  to  insure  the  escape  of  the  Russian 
centre.  I  do  not  know  what  the  Russians 
lost  in  men  and  guns  by  the  taking  of  this 
fortress,  but  its  two-week  defense  was  worth 
to  the  Russians  the  loss  of  several  army  corps, 
and  I  doubt  if  it  cost  that  much.    With  the 

123 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

loss  of  this  fortress  the  taking  of  Bialostok 
became  merely  a  matter  of  days,  and  with  the 
fall  of  that  important  city  Grodno  in  turn  was 
doomed.  The  fact  that  this  fortress  was 
designed  (as  I  have  been  credibly  informed) 
by  a  German  engineer  now  serving  on  Hinden- 
burg's  staff  no  doubt  led  to  its  capture  earlier 
than  might  otherwise  have  happened.  The 
only  point  on  the  eastern  front  which  was  a 
distinct  disappointment  to  the  Russians  was 
Kovno,  which  only  withstood  the  German 
attacks  for  relatively  a  few  days  when  it  should 
have  held  out  for  weeks  at  least,  being  one  of 
the  newest  and  supposedly  most  modern  of 
all  the  defenses  on  the  Russian  frontier.  Its 
capitulation,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  was  probably 
due  to  treachery  on  the  part  of  some  of  the 
command  within  the  fortress.  Certainly  a 
high  ranking  officer  was  removed  from  com- 
mand and  is  said  to  be  languishing  in  a  dun- 
geon somewhere  in  Russia  to-day.  The  loss 
of  Kovno  was  really  the  only  ugly  blot  in  the 

124 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

entire  retreat  as  far  as  I  know.  The  German 
advance  in  the  centre  meeting  meagre  resist- 
ance arrived  with  due  celerity  in  front  of 
Brest-Litowsk.  From  talks  I  have  had  with 
German  sympathizers  since  I  am  inclined  to 
believe  that  the  Germans  expected  and  hoped 
for  a  Russian  stand  here  where  they  could 
deliver  a  decisive  and  crushing  blow.  Their 
disappointment  must  have  been  great  when 
they  found  the  Muscovites  again  in  motion 
and  themselves  faced  with  an  advance  into  a 
country  beyond  the  Bug  containing  no  town 
or  city  for  hundreds  of  miles  that  any  one 
outside  of  Russia  had  ever  heard  of.  The 
German  papers  announced  vast  captures  of 
munitions  at  Brest.  I  cannot  imagine  what 
they  were,  because  when  I  passed  that  way 
shortly  ahead  of  the  enemy  there  was  but  a 
meagre  accumulation  of  anything  though  it 
was  then  the  base  on  which  a  number  of 
armies  were  drawing  for  supplies.  No  doubt 
a  congestion  of  empty  caissons  and   a  few 

125 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

shells  in  the  town  itself  were  dangled  before 
the  German  correspondents  as  a  great  prize. 
One  must  let  the  Germans  get  all  the  pleasure 
they  can  out  of  Brest-Litowsk,  for  certainly  it 
was  the  last  golden  spot  the  army  that  cap- 
tured it  can  look  back  on  for  the  1915  cam- 
paign. As  I  have  tried  to  show  what  had 
happened  at  the  actual  front  after  Warsaw, 
though  depressing  and  to  be  deprecated,  was 
not  in  any  way  the  great  disaster  on  which  the 
Germans  alone  could  count  for  forcing  an 
independent  peace  with  Russia,  the  goal  of 
all  their  hopes.  But  there  did  develop  in 
Petrograd  at  this  time  a  political  situation 
which  presented  the  most  serious  menace  that 
Russia  has  faced  since  the  war  started,  and 
this  was  the  created  reports  that  an  independ- 
ent peace  was  pending.  Petrograd  has  always 
been  filled  with  German  interests  and  German 
sympathizers  and  from  the  day  that  the  war 
started  it  has  been  replete  with  calamity  howlers 
endeavoring  to  discourage  the  population  and 

126 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

to  convince  them  that  the  cause  of  the  Czar 
was  hopelessly  lost.  From  the  loss  of  Sam- 
sonov's  army  in  the  first  month  of  the  war  to 
the  time  of  writing  there  has  never  been  a 
Russian  check  or  reverse  at  the  front  that 
has  not  been  circulated  in  an  hour  in  all  quar- 
ters of  Russia's  capital.  So  active  were  these 
propagandists  that  they  did  not  wait  even  for 
the  fall  of  Warsaw  before  they  started  in  to 
break  down  public  confidence.  When  the 
news  finally  came  that  the  Polish  city  was  lost 
there  started  malicious  and  specious  prop- 
aganda in  Petrograd  which  have  probably 
never  been  equalled.  Every  report  which 
could  discourage  the  population  was  circulated. 
On  every  side  one  heard  statements  that  the 
Allies  were  not  in  accord,  that  England  made 
the  war  and  had  purposely  held  her  hand  that 
Russia  might  be  destroyed  by  Germany;  that 
the  government  itself  was  suspicious  of  the 
Alliance  and  was  only  seeking  an  opportunity 
to  make  an  independent  peace  with  Germany. 

127 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

This  line  of  propaganda  started  with  the  fall 
of  Warsaw  and  increased  every  time  the 
Germans  took  a  new  town  or  village,  which  was 
practically  every  day  for  a  month.  Such 
headway  did  this  slander  make  that 
within  a  few  weeks  a  large  portion  of  the  simple 
people  of  Petrograd  began  to  believe  it.  And 
the  third  week  people  outside  of  Petrograd 
began  to  talk  about  it,  and  at  last  the  same 
rumors  began  to  circulate  in  the  army.  There 
was,  I  think,  no  real  danger  at  any  time  in 
Petrograd,  for  the  government  I  sincerely 
believe  has  never  seriously  considered  any 
such  move  from  the  day  war  began,  but  the 
circulation  of  these  stories  in  an  army  that 
had  been  retreating  for  months  was  like  the 
injection  of  a  malignant  microbe  in  a  culture. 
The  morale  of  an  army  which  could  not  be 
shaken  by  defeats,  losses,  or  retreats  was  as 
a  matter  of  fact  seriously  menaced  for  a  few 
days  by  the  malicious  rumors  which  somehow 
or  other  found   their  way  back.     I   do   not 

128 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

think  that  there  was  ever  at  any  time  any 
immediate  danger  to  the  army  because  the 
Russian  is  slow  to  take  an  idea,  but  the  germ 
that  was  working  threatened  ultimately  to 
affect  the  spirits  of  the  soldiers  to  a  degree 
that  might  have  proven  disastrous.  The 
government  met  this  growing  danger  by  the 
issuance  of  a  statement  by  Sazonov,  the  Min- 
ister of  Foreign  Affairs,  categorically  denying 
in  behalf  of  the  Russian  government  all  these 
false  reports  and  definitely  stating  that  there 
would  never  be  an  independent  peace  while 
there  remained  a  single  enemy  on  Russian  soil. 
This  announcement  checked  the  flood  of 
false  report  for  the  moment,  and  the  announce- 
ment a  few  weeks  later  that  the  Czar  would 
take  command  of  the  army  in  person  abso- 
lutely dissipated  it.  Every  one  in  Russia  said 
at  once,  "It  is  clear  that  the  Czar  is  staking 
his  dynasty  on  success,  for  he  is  taking  the 
little  Grand  Duke  and  the  heir  to  the  throne 
with  him."     From  the  moment  that  the  Em- 

129 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

peror  went  to  the  front  in  person  this  danger 
was  eliminated,  and  though  certain  reverses 
occurred  later,  there  has,  I  think,  never  been  a 
really  hazardous  situation  to  Russia  or  the 
Russian  arms  since  the  day  that  the  Tenth 
Russian  Army  made  good  its  escape  from 
Vilna.  As  this  stands  as  one  of  the  greatest 
strategic  achievements  of  the  war,  it  is,  I  think, 
quite  worth  a  separate  chapter. 


130 


XIV 

THE  ESCAPE  FROM  VILNA 

Early  in  September  it  was  already  clear 
that  the  bulk  of  the  Russian  Army  had  evaded 
the  disaster  that  the  Germans  had  planned 
for  it.  Heavy  fighting  had  been  going  on  all 
along  the  line,  but  skilful  handling  by  Alexieff, 
who  was  in  personal  charge  of  the  operations, 
had  resulted  in  the  withdrawal  of  the  armies 
of  the  Czar  from  practically  every  point  on 
their  line  where  there  remained  any  possibility 
of  the  Germans  scoring  a  heavy  blow  against 
them,  with  the  single  exception  of  Vilna  in 
the  north.  The  Teutons,  who  had  been 
straining  every  nerve  to  make  the  retreat 
a  rout,  had  failed  signally,  and  the  best 
that  they  could  do  was  to  follow  up  the 
Russian  retirement,  cutting  off  stragglers  and 

131 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

capturing  batches  of  prisoners  here  and  there 
where  the  Russian  rear  guards  became  sepa- 
rated from  the  main  body  of  the  retreating 
army.  I  cannot  estimate  the  Russian  losses 
in  this  retreat,  but  I  question  if  they  were  any 
greater  than  those  suffered  by  the  pursuing 
enemy.  But  for  some  reason  or  other  the 
Russians  held  on  to  Vilna,  permitting  the 
Germans  to  drive  back  the  Russian  armies 
that  flanked  the  Vilna  Army  both  on  the  north 
and  on  the  south,  thus  leaving  the  city  itself 
in  an  extremely  dangerous  salient.  The  Ger- 
mans were  not  far  from  Riga  in  the  north,  and 
were  pushing  hard  for  the  whole  Dwina  line, 
while  the  retreat  in  the  south  left  the  enemy 
well  advanced  on  the  southern  flank  of  War- 
saw. I  was  at  this  time  with  the  armies  of 
General  Ruszky,  then  in  command  of  the 
northern  group,  and  it  was  expected  daily 
that  the  Vilna  Army,  the  Tenth,  would  fall 
back  on  the  line  of  the  railroad  to  Petrograd 
and  take  up  its  position  near  Dwinsk,  thus 

132 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

giving  the  Russians  much  needed  reinforce- 
ments on  that  very  important  strategical  line 
that  stretched  from  Riga  to  the  Petrograd- 
Vilna  Railroad  at  Dwinsk.  Just  why  this 
army  did  not  come  out  sooner  is  not  clear. 
Perhaps  the  Czar,  who  had  just  taken  over 
the  command,  did  not  wish  to  inaugurate  his 
assumption  of  military  authority  by  the 
evacuation  of  so  important  a  post  as  Vilna. 
In  any  event,  while  the  Tenth  Army  still 
lingered  in  front  of  Vilna,  the  Germans  in  a 
sweeping  cavalry  raid  cut  the  Petrograd  line 
of  railroad  at  a  point  southwest  of  Dwinsk, 
and  thus  shut  off  the  Vilna  Army  from  its  base 
and  source  of  supplies,  not  to  mention  closing 
the  avenue  of  communications  upon  which  it 
expected  to  retire  to  the  reinforcement  of 
General  Ruszky's  group  in  the  north.  Ger- 
man advances  to  the  south  then  left  the  Tenth 
Army  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  the  enemy, 
and  a  few  days  later  the  German  cavalry 
cut  the  Russian  line  of  railroad  at  Molodechno 

133 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

and  established  themselves  on  the  highway 
which  was  the  only  other  route  that  the  Vilna 
Army  could  follow  to  enable  it  to  rejoin  the 
main  body  of  the  Russian  forces.  The  Ger- 
man raiding  column  was  said  to  be  composed 
of  thirteen  and  one-half  divisions  of  cavalry,  or 
a  number  probably  not  far  short  of  40,000  sa- 
bres, not  to  mention  moderate  supports  of 
artillery.  Thus  we  see  that  the  Germans  at 
last  had  pulled  off  a  coup  in  strategy  such  as 
they  had  been  planning  for  months.  For 
once  it  seemed  as  though  they  had  achieved 
their  aims  and  had  actually  bagged  an  enor- 
mous Russian  Army.  The  moment  the  news 
of  the  movement  reached  Petrograd  the  Ger- 
man sympathizers  were  busy  as  usual,  and 
it  was  stated  on  every  side  that  the  Tenth 
Army  had  been  entirely  destroyed  and  that 
what  had  not  been  killed  or  wounded  was  in 
German  hands.  Certainly  the  enemy  never 
'have  had  a  better  opportunity  in  the  war  to 
inflict  a  disaster,  and  certainly  no  man  ever 

134 


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The  Battle  of  Vilna,  September  13-24,  1915 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

performed  a  finer  feat  than  Alexieff  in  getting 
this  army  out  of  the  hole  in  which  it  had  be- 
come involved.  It  is  impossible  at  this  time 
to  give  the  details  of  this  operation,  but  when 
they  become  known  Alexieff  will  be  accorded 
the  honor  which  is  his  due,  of  being  one  of  the 
greatest  living  strategists.  He  was  at  this 
time  miles  away  at  the  General  Headquarters, 
of  which  he  had  become  the  real  head,  being 
subordinate  only  to  the  Czar  himself.  When 
this  situation  developed  he  locked  himself  up 
in  his  office  and  during  the  delicate  days  that 
followed  directed  the  entire  movement  of  the 
Tenth  Army  in  person.  With  the  telegraph 
and  field  wireless  he  was  in  direct  communica- 
tion with  the  surrounded  army,  and  one  of  his 
personal  aides  informed  me  that  he  supervised 
the  movements  even  of  divisions  and  brigades, 
going  over  the  heads  of  the  generals  in  direct 
command.  Alexieff  knew  his  army  thoroughly 
from  one  end  of  the  line  to  the  other,  and  he 
at  once  started  movements  in  every  direction, 

135 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

which  resulted  in  confusing  the  enemy  as  to 
what  he  was  really  about.  Demonstrations 
here  and  there  along  the  line  prevented  the 
Germans  from  supporting  properly,  while  the 
potential  menaces  which  he  created  in  the 
south  threatened  the  German  column  which 
was  flanking  the  Vilna  Army  from  that  direc- 
tion with  a  disaster  of  its  own.  In  the  mean- 
time counter-attacks  by  the  rear  guard  and 
other  demonstrations  checked  the  German 
pursuit,  and  while  they  were  still  pressing  on 
the  northern  flank  the  centre  cut  its  way  out  at 
Molodechno,  going  through  the  German  cav- 
alry like  brown  paper.  What  happened  was 
not  in  the  least  surprising  to  any  one  who 
knew  the  army,  and  I  cabled  the  Times  days 
before  that  the  Tenth  Army  would  escape. 
It  was  clear  that  the  Germans  to  make  this 
cavalry  movement  would  have  to  travel  fast, 
and  at  the  speed  necessary  to  gain  their  ob- 
jective they  could  carry  but  a  small  amount  of 
horse  artillery  and  a  limited  amount  of  muni- 

136 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

tions.  It  was  equally  certain  that  they  would 
reach  the  end  of  their  long  ride  badly  ex- 
hausted. The  army  of  Vilna  consisted  of 
seven  of  the  finest  corps  of  the  Russian  Army. 
It  was  certain  that  when  they  started  out 
their  heavy  guns  and  the  bulk  of  their  ammuni- 
tion would  go  first,  and  the  first  corps  follow- 
ing would  be  those  the  longest  out  of  heavy 
action  and  hence  the  freshest  for  a  fight.  The 
Germans,  therefore,  tired  and  exhausted,  with 
only  a  small  amount  of  light  artillery,  went  up 
against  the  heavy  Russian  guns  first,  with  a 
fresh  corps  in  the  Russian  van  and  six  others 
coming  behind  that,  with  the  Russian  Guard 
holding  the  rear.  The  result  was  that  the 
German  force  dissipated  utterly  before  the 
Russians,  and  the  Teutons  lost  their  last 
chance  of  1915  to  score  an  important  dis- 
aster. This  movement  really  marked  the  last 
phase  in  the  retreat  from  Warsaw.  When  one 
comes  to  size  it  all  up  one  cannot  but  conclude 
that  the  operations  following  Warsaw  must 

137 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

have  been  a  tremendous  disappointment  to 
the  Germans.  Every  army,  from  that  of 
Loesche  on  the  Chelm-Lublin  line  to  the. 
Tenth  at  Vilna,  had  successfully  escaped  from 
the  clutches  of  the  Germans  after  inflicting 
losses  which  must  have  run  well  up  in  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  for  the  Germans,  and 
by  the  last  of  September  the  Russians  had 
brought  them  to  a  standstill. 


138 


XV 

THE  DEFENSE  OF  PETROGRAD 

With  the  fall  of  Kovno  and  renewed  and 
energetic  advances  in  the  direction  of  Riga 
in  latter  August  a  wave  of  apprehension  swept 
Petrograd,  and  there  was  a  period  of  perhaps 
ten  days  when  it  was  freely  prophesied  that 
the  Germans  would  be  in  the  capital  city  by 
the  first  of  the  new  year.  The  evacuation  of 
Vilna  fed  the  panic,  which,  as  may  be  imag- 
ined, was  encouraged  in  every  way  by  the 
German  sympathizers.  At  this  time  General 
Ruszky,  who  had  been  recuperating  from  ill- 
ness in  the  Caucasus,  where  he  had  been  since 
March,  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the 
so-called  Northern  Group  of  Armies,  which 
were  those  stationed  along  the  line  of  the 
Dwina  River  from  Riga  to  south  of  Dwinsk, 

139 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

or  Diinaberg,  as  the  Germans  called  it.  This 
army  was  the  army  of  the  Petrograd  defense. 
To  hear  the  talk  then  rife  in  Petrograd  one 
might  have  imagined  the  Germans  were  just 
outside  the  city  limits  instead  of  being  nearly 
four  hundred  miles  away,  with  an  important 
group  of  armies  between  them  and  their  goal. 
Had  the  Tenth  Army,  which  had  been  in 
Vilna,  left  earlier  and  come  back  to  Ruszky, 
there  would  have  been  no  chance  at  all  for 
the  enemy  to  have  broken  the  Dwina  line, 
but  with  this  army  going  off  southeast  and 
thus  stripping  the  Northern  Group  of  the 
seven  corps  which  had  been  expected,  Ruszky 
was  put  to  his  trumps  to  hold  the  Germans 
back,  and  for  a  week  or  so  the  situation  did 
not  look  any  too  bright  for  the  Russians.  The 
German  line,  after  the  Vilna  movement  had 
died  away,  was  stalled  from  Galicia  to  Dwinsk 
and  had  been  forced  to  halt  just  where  its 
momentum  had  evaporated.  It  is  absurd  to 
imagine  that  the  German  line  south  of  Dwinsk 

140 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

was  one  picked  by  themselves.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  represents  the  point  where  their 
capacity  to  advance  gave  out,  and  their  move- 
ment halted  as  an  arrow  falls  to  earth,  because 
there  was  no  longer  any  driving  power  behind 
it.  The  attack  in  the  west  in  September  took 
the  final  drive  out  of  the  Germans,  and  by  the 
last  of  September  the  only  possible  strategic 
aim  in  the  east  which  they  could  hope  for  was 
the  line  from  Riga  to  Dwinsk,  which  would  at 
least  give  them  the  satisfaction  of  claiming 
that  they  had  reached  the  point  that  they 
had  planned  to  attain  for  their  winter  line. 

Ever  since  the  preceding  May  the  Germans 
had  been  operating  in  Courland,  and  it  was 
believed  by  the  Russians  again  and  again  that 
Riga  was  about  to  fall.  In  September,  when 
all  of  the  German  strategic  aims  were  grad- 
ually evaporating  and  Riga  and  Dwinsk  were 
the  only  hope  left,  the  Germans  began  a  series 
of  heavy  attacks  all  along  this  line.  Ruszky 
was  extremely  short  of  men,  but  was  based  on 

141 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

Petrograd  and  had  the  best  railroad  commu- 
nications that  the  Russian  railway  system 
affords,  and  hence  was  able  to  put  up  a  defense 
which,  though  often  hard  pressed,  never 
collapsed,  with  the  result  that  by  October 
1st  the  German  opportunity  to  get  even  this 
last  goal  was  gone  for  the  winter  and  probably 
forever.  During  this  fighting  I  made  several 
visits  to  Ruszky  and  travelled  nearly  a  thou- 
sand miles  in  his  theatre  of  operations, 
visiting  the  positions  in  a  number  of  places, 
and  here  for  the  first  time  since  the  beginning 
of  the  war  I  began  to  detect  that  subtle  seep- 
age of  morale  which  was  beginning  to  manifest 
itself  among  the  German  soldiers.  I  saw  a 
group  of  prisoners  near  Dwinsk,  and  their 
point  of  view  was  extremely  significant:  "We 
have  been  deceived,"  was  the  typical  way 
their  case  was  viewed.  "We  were  told  all 
summer  that  if  we  could  take  Warsaw  we 
would  have  peace  with  Russia.  Well,  we 
took  Warsaw  months  ago,  and  nothing  came  of 

142 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

it.  After  that  we  took  Grodno,  Kovno,  and 
now  we  have  taken  Vilna,  and  still  nothing 
comes  of  it.  For  months  we  have  been  told 
that  Riga  was  about  to  fall.  It  hasn't,  and 
we  do  not  see  the  end  of  the  war  even  if  we 
can  cross  the  Dwina  River.  It  is  hundreds 
of  miles  to  any  place,  and  the  winter  is  coming 
on.  What  have  we  to  gain?  We  see  no 
peace  in  sight."  More  significant  still  was 
the  class  of  man  one  found  in  these  days. 
No  longer  formations  of  young  men  of  ap- 
proximately the  same  size  and  age,  but  com- 
panies containing  individuals  ranging  in  age 
from  nineteen  to  forty-nine  years  and  in 
height  from  five  feet  two  to  over  six  feet. 
Many  of  these  were  men  who  had  been  with- 
drawn from  industrial  life  and  whose  intellec- 
tual initiative  was  so  much  more  developed 
that  they  did  not  care  to  attack  again  and 
again  unless  there  seemed  to  be  a  chance  of 
success.  In  the  earlier  days  of  the  war  the 
Germans  used  to  attack  fifteen  and  twenty 

143 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

times  in  a  day.  I  suppose  the  first  line  com- 
posed of  young  men  never  asked  questions, 
but  it  is  different  with  these  older  men.  One 
rarely  hears  now  of  attacks  being  made  more 
than  four  or  five  times  in  a  day  on  the  same 
positions,  and  if  they  fail  to  develop  a  weak- 
ness in  the  Russian  line  another  point  is  tried 
elsewhere.  I  cannot  speak,  of  course,  of  the 
Germans  in  the  west,  but  allude  only  to  the 
situation  that  I  have  seen  in  the  east.  The 
result  is  that  the  Germans  now  in  Russia, 
from  the  fact  that  they  have  lost  such  volumes 
of  young  men,  are  gradually  losing  their 
capacity  to  drive  home  attacks,  because  the 
new  troops  have  not  the  punch  of  those  being 
marshalled  for  war  a  year  ago.  If  my  state- 
ment seems  doubtful,  I  can  refer  to  the  reports 
published  largely  in  the  German  press  late  in 
the  fall  which  stated  that  Hindenburg  had 
sent  back  for  more  training  several  formations 
that  had  come  up  to  him  on  the  Dwina  front. 
To  offset  the  falling  in  the  quality  of  their 

144 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

troops  the  Germans  are  redoubling  their 
efforts  to  keep  up  a  superiority  of  material. 
Machine  guns,  heavy  howitzers,  field  artillery, 
and  limitless  quantities  of  shells  and  munitions 
must  now  be  increasingly  the  assets  with 
which  they  fight,  and  as  they  begin  to  turn 
toward  material  as  a  substitute  for  men  it  is 
increasingly  clear  that  the  day  of  a  strictly 
defensive  German  attitude  is  not  so  many 
months  distant.  I  cannot  tell  what  the  last 
frantic  German  efforts  on  the  Dwina  cost 
them,  but  I  do  know  that  at  the  last  fight 
which  I  attended  there  were  147  German 
dead  on  the  barb  wire  in  front  of  a  single 
Russian  company  as  the  product  of  a  single 
night's  fighting.  Most  of  these  were  men 
drawn  from  the  red  blood  of  German  industrial 
life.  Each  represented  a  productive  unit  and 
formed  an  integral  part  of  that  system  of 
trade  and  industry  which  has  made  the  Ger- 
man Empire.  One  of  these  men  whose 
efficiency  from  a  military  point  of  view  is  half 

145 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

that  of  the  first  line  is  a  greater  loss  to  the 
empire  than  two  of  the  younger  men  that 
were  killed  last  year,  for  these  men  who  are 
now  being  buried  in  tens  of  thousands  on 
foreign  battlefields  are  the  ones  upon  whom 
Germany  must  count  if  she  is  to  hope  to  re- 
build her  trade  and  repair  her  wasted  indus- 
tries. 


146 


XVI 

SUMMARY  OF  THE  SITUATION  TO 
NOVEMBER  1ST,  1915 

With  the  final  evaporation  of  their  oppor- 
tunities to  take  the  Dwina  line  the  German 
initiative  in  the  east  was  suspended.  Suffi- 
cient time  has  now  elapsed  to  enable  one  to 
get  a  little  perspective  on  the  summer's  cam- 
paign. As  the  Russians  view  it,  Germany  has 
failed.  Her  aim  in  Russia  has  been  an  inde- 
pendent peace.  Warsaw,  which  was  supposed 
to  represent  that  goal,  was  taken,  and  no 
peace  came.  From  talks  with  German  pris- 
oners I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  Ger- 
mans felt  that  the  Russian  edifice  was  shaken 
like  a  house  of  cards  when  Warsaw  fell,  and 
that  every  step  they  advanced  thereafter 
might  prove  the  last  straw  which  would  break 

147 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

down  the  Russian  resistance  entirely  and 
throw  them  into  political  chaos.  When  it 
became  clear  that  Warsaw  had  not  produced 
the  expected  result  it  was  hoped  that  the  cap- 
ture of  Brest-Litowsk,  which  was  on  the 
frontier  of  Russia  itself,  would  be  the  finishing 
touch.  The  Germans  arrived  there  only  to 
see  the  Russians  slipping  off  into  their  spaces 
to  the  east  a  few  days  later.  I  think  history 
will  judge  the  German  advance  beyond  the 
Bug  and  Brest-Litowsk  as  a  colossal  blunder. 
In  the  first  place,  there  was  no  place  within 
hundreds  of  miles  of  the  Bug  eastward  that 
had  sufficient  strategic  importance  to  warrant 
the  sacrifices  which  a  winter  campaign  was 
sure  to  involve.  At  this  time  Petrograd, 
Moscow,  and  Kiev  were  the  only  points  the 
capture  of  which  would  have  materially 
helped  the  German  cause.  Not  one  of  these 
was  attainable  to  them.  In  the  second  place, 
the  moment  they  set  their  feet  into  Russia 
proper,  whatever  chance  they  had  before  of 

148 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

getting  peace  with  Russia,  and  that  was 
small  enough,  evaporated  over  night.  For 
weeks  we  find  them  trading  German  lives 
which  they  could  not  spare  for  the  bleak 
winter  landscape  of  "holy  Russia,"  which  the 
Russians  can  give  away  by  the  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  square  miles  and  never  miss.  Ulti- 
mately the  line  came  to  a  halt  in  the  most 
dismal  and  desolate  country  one  can  imagine. 
It  stretches  to-day  through  swamp  and  forest, 
over  wind-swept  plains  and  near  a  few  primi- 
tive villages.  What  have  the  Germans  to 
show  for  their  enterprise  since  September? 
A  huge  casualty  list  and  an  army  of  men  no 
longer  young  sitting  in  the  snow  and  cold  of 
barren  Russia  waiting  for — what?  A  chance 
to  involve  themselves  still  deeper  in  the  spaces 
of  Russia  this  summer  or  a  retreat,  seems  to 
one  who  knows  the  country  and  the  Russian 
Army  to  be  their  only  alternatives.  What,  then, 
have  the  million  or  two  casualties  that  Germany 
has    spent   on   Russia    in    the   last   eighteen 

149 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

months  profited  her?  Territory  is  the  only 
reply,  and  that  is  hers  only  if  she  can  beat 
not  only  Russia  but  the  Allies  in  the  west  as 
well.  If  the  German  strength  is  broken  in  the 
heart  of  Russia,  as  it  may  well  be,  it  serves  the 
cause  of  the  Allies  and  of  Russia,  too,  as  well  as 
though  the  final  collapse  came  in  Germany 
itself.  All  of  the  conquered  territory  will 
come  back  to  Russia  in  a  day  by  treaty  agree- 
ment, and  the  German  sacrifices  will  represent 
a  net  and  total  loss.  In  the  meantime,  when 
even  the  best  friend  of  Germany  must  admit 
that  she  has  passed  the  zenith  of  her  resources 
both  in  men  and  material,  Russia  has  passed 
her  ebb  tide  and  is  getting  stronger  day  by 
day.  I  have  heard  tales  of  only  old  men  left 
in  Russia  to  fight.  This  is  a  mere  fiction. 
There  are  two  million  of  Russia's  young  man- 
hood trained  and  awaiting  only  arms  to  go  to 
the  front.  Can  Germany  ever  again  put  in 
this  war  two  million  young  men  in  the  field? 
Russia  can  put  twice  that  this  year  if  she  gets 

loO 


The  winter  lines,  November,  1915 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

material,  and  a  million  a  year  thereafter  for 
as  long  as  the  war  lasts.  The  Russian  tide  is 
coming  in  as  the  German  is  beginning  to  ebb. 
What  Germany  failed  to  do  in  1915,  when  her 
fortunes  were  at  their  zenith  and  Russia  had 
nothing  but  character  with  which  to  oppose 
her,  she  certainly  will  not  accomplish  in  1916, 
when  Russia  is  gaining  strength  and  material 
daily.  The  friends  of  Germany  point  with 
pride  at  the  map  to  show  the  uninterrupted 
success  of  the  Teutons  by  their  advances  in 
Serbia.  It  may  seem  absurd  to  criticise  an 
army  that  is  sweeping  victoriously  ahead, 
but  one  must  judge  from  a  wider  perspective 
than  pins  on  a  map.  Personally  I  think  the 
German-Serbian  campaign  will  prove  to  have 
brought  her  not  one  step  nearer  to  her 
aims  and  will  even  hasten  her  ultimate  col- 
lapse. 

It  must  be  clear  that  after  eighteen  months 
of  war  no  objective  is  justifiable  that  spells 
sacrifice    without    definitely    advancing    the 

151 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

chances  of  forcing  peace.  What  the  German- 
Serbian  move  represents  is  this :  for  more  than 
a  year  decisions  had  been  sought  in  the  east 
and  in  the  west,  where  alone  peace  might  be 
forced  if  victory  were  attained.  These  de- 
cisions have  not  been  attained.  Germany 
then  swings  into  Serbia  and  secures  more 
victories.  What  is  to  profit  her?  Does  any 
one  imagine  that  the  decision  of  this  war  lies 
in  the  Balkans,  Asia  Minor,  or  even  in  Egypt, 
or  India  for  that  matter?  If  they  do  they 
vastly  underestimate  the  psychology  of  Eng- 
land. Great  Britain  might  lose  both  India 
and  Egypt  and  the  world  would  find  her 
farther  from  making  peace  than  the  day  war 
started,  and  incidentally  only  just  ready  to 
make  war.  Does  any  one  imagine  German 
successes  in  the  Balkans  are  going  to  affect 
France  or  Russia?  If  so  they  are  building  on 
sand.  What,  then,  does  the  German  campaign 
there  represent?  Merely  this:  that  at  a 
time  when  it  is  increasingly  clear  that  the 

152 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

great  decision  lies  in  Europe  she  is  committing 
herself  to  a  long  and  costly  series  of  operations, 
in  a  theatre  where  the  best  she  can  hope  for 
is  to  impair  the  prestige  of  the  Allies.  Ulti- 
mately she  will  be  checked  there  as  well. 
What  then  ?  Either  a  continuous  drain  on  her 
resources  to  hold  her  advanced  line  or  a  re- 
treat with  less  of  prestige.  In  other  words, 
Germany,  with  two  bungholes  open  in  her 
barrel  of  resources,  has  suddenly  tapped  still 
a  third,  and  by  just  so  much  is  advancing  the 
day  of  her  final  period  of  exhaustion.  I  think 
the  German  campaign  is  analogous  to  an  in- 
dividual who  has  started  in  to  corner  wheat. 
After  a  bit  he  has  purchased  so  heavily  that  he 
must  either  buy  all  that  is  offered  or  see  a 
break  in  the  market  and  himself  ruined.  So 
it  is  with  the  Germans.  By  success  they  keep 
their  stock  up,  and  when  failure  faces  them  in 
their  objectives  on  one  front  they  mortgage 
their  patrimony  and  start  something  on 
another  that  will  keep  their  boom  going  a 

153 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

little  longer.  The  German  campaign  in  Ser- 
bia, to  continue  the  analogy,  is  like  the  man  in 
the  wheat  pit  who  has  finally  mortgaged  his 
house  to  raise  the  last  dollar  to  keep  up  the 
price  of  wheat  to  prevent  its  absolute  collapse. 
His  problem  has  become  a  simple  one:  buy 
the  whole  wheat  crop  or  go  into  bankruptcy. 
So  with  the  Germans:  they  must  keep  boost- 
ing their  stock  somewhere  regardless  of  cost 
or  face  the  issue  of  ruin  which  failure  to  keep 
advancing  spells.  The  Russian  xArmy  is  now 
in  the  hands  of  Alexieff,  the  cleverest  and 
most  capable  general  the  Russians  have  ever 
had  in  their  history.  He  knows  his  army 
from  the  Bukowina  to  the  Baltic.  He  is  a 
man  of  few  words,  but  what  he  says  he 
means. 

I  cannot  do  better  than  to  close  this  chapter 
with  his  own  words:  ' Undiscouraged  and 
undemoralized,  the  Russian  Army  now  stands 
based  on  the  centre  of  the  Russian  Empire, 
with  confidence  in  itself  and  faith  in  its  ca- 

154 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

pacity  to  advance  when  the  opportunity  pre- 
sents itself." 

That  Alexieff  spoke  the  truth  is  obvious  if 
one  reads  the  reports  from  Galicia  for  the 
first  two  weeks  in  January,  1916. 


155 


XVII 

RUSSIA 
AN  EMPIRE  OF  AMERICAN  OPPORTUNITY 

Russia  is  one  of  the  biggest  countries  in  the 
world  and  with  one  of  the  largest  populations. 
It  is  the  country  to-day  of  the  greatest  opportu- 
nity for  American  trade  that  commercial  history 
has  ever  offered  to  this  country,  yet  it  is  the 
country  that  is  least  known  and  least  under- 
stood by  us  of  any  nation  in  the  world.  Be- 
cause it  is  a  long  way  off  and  has  never  at- 
tempted to  speak  for  itself  it  has  come  to  pass 
that  Russia  has  been  more  frequently  mis- 
represented than  any  of  the  nations  of  Europe. 
The  fiction  of  a  cruel  race  typified  by  brutal 
soldiery  has  passed  current  so  long  that  half 
the  world  has  come  to  believe  it,  a  fiction  be 
it  said  which  has  been  made  for  the  greater 

156 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

part  out  of  whole  cloth.  As  the  war  pro- 
gresses it  is  just  beginning  to  be  realized  in 
America  that  there  is  a  strong  possibility  that 
Russia  will  emerge  from  this  great  conflict  as 
one  of  the  great  dominant  world  factors  of  the 
future  not  only  from  the  military  point  of  view 
but  as  an  enormous  empire  of  170,000,000 
population  emerging  from  a  lethargy  of  cen- 
turies to  take  for  the  first  time  its  proper  place 
in  the  commercial  and  industrial  life  of  the 
world.  And  in  this  period  comes  the  great 
opportunity  for  America  and  Americans  to 
secure  for  themselves  a  market  for  their  ex- 
ports such  as  South  America  and  China  com- 
bined will  not  in  a  generation  equal. 

To  understand  why  this  great  opportunity 
now  lies  open  for  us  to  take  up  practically  for 
the  asking  it  is  necessary  to  consider  a  little 
the  relations  of  the  past  generation  that  have 
existed  between  Germany  and  Russia.  For 
a  decade  or  two,  as  all  the  world  knows,  the 
German  trade  has  been  with  intelligent  in- 

157 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

dustry  pushing  its  tenacles  into  all  parts  of 
the  world,  but  preeminently  it  has  been  en- 
gaged in  quietly  but  surely  absorbing  the 
Russian  markets.  The  effects  of  this  sweep- 
ing campaign  to  get  the  Russian  field  of  trade 
has  not  been  popular  with  the  Russians  from 
the  first,  for  even  at  the  start  it  became  ob- 
vious to  close  observers  that  the  Germans, 
with  their  cheap  goods  delivered  all  over 
Russia,  were  gradually  choking  all  Russian 
industrial  initiative,  for  few  in  Russia  could 
start  an  industry  and  face  the  German  com- 
petition. This  aspect  of  the  German  trade 
alone  caused  great  uneasiness  among  those 
who  really  had  the  interests  of  Russia  at  heart, 
but  this  aspect  proved  to  be  of  minor  im- 
portance when  it  gradually  dawned  on  Russia 
that  German  industry  and  trade  meant  not 
only  a  commercial  influence  but  a  political 
influence  the  strength  of  which  was  not  realized 
until  the  war  broke  out,  when  it  was  discovered 
that  the  Germans  had  for  years  been  exerting 

158 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

a  power  on  Russian  affairs  that  had  not  been 
realized.  It  is  difficult  to  prove  a  legal  case 
against  the  Germans,  but  the  Russians  claim 
that  for  ten  years  this  subtle  Teuton  influence, 
moving  through  a  thousand  hidden  channels 
and  acting  in  devious  ways,  had  been  behind 
every  move  looking  toward  the  enlightenment 
of  Russia;  for  very  obviously  an  educated 
and  reformed  Russia  meant  the  beginning  of 
the  end  of  German  sway,  and  for  it  spelled 
not  only  the  curtailment  of  German  commer- 
cial inroads  but  it  likewise  heralded  an  efficient 
and  growing  army  which  was  the  bugbear  of 
the  Russian  military  cast.  Russians  claim 
that  German  influence  delayed  the  abolition 
of  vodka  for  years,  that  German  intrigue  and 
wiles  have  for  ten  years  opposed  secretly  every 
program  looking  toward  the  education  of  the 
peasants,  and  in  fact  working  against  any  and 
every  program  that  spelled  a  progress  which 
would  change  Russia  so  that  she  would  no 
longer  be  the  prey  of  her  clever  neighbor.     On 

159 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

the  outbreak  of  the  war,  when  Warsaw  was 
threatened,  there  was  a  great  outcry  because 
the  permanent  forts  of  Warsaw  had  been  dis- 
mantled three  years  before.  "Who  did  it 
and  why?"  was  the  question  on  everybody's 
lips.  "German  influence  in  the  War  Office 
at  Petrograd,"  was  the  reply  that  was  believed 
all  over  the  Russian  Empire.  When  the 
Russians  blew  up  their  bridges  in  the  retreat 
from  Kalish  (Poland)  the  Germans  had  a  new 
steel  one  operating  in  sixteen  hours.  "How 
could  it  be  possible?"  was  the  question  asked 
in  Petrograd.  Inquiry  disclosed  the  fact 
that  the  bridge  was  built  by  German  engineers 
and  that  duplicate  parts  from  original  draw- 
ings were  constructed  before  the  war  started 
and  were  actually  on  flat  cars  ready  to  be 
rushed  to  the  front  when  the  first  bridge  was 
destroyed.  Russia,  and  perhaps  some  of  the 
rest  of  the  world,  also  wondered  how  it  was 
that  the  Germans  in  their  advance  after  War- 
saw were  able  to  take  so  quickly  certain  Rus- 

160 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

sian  forts.  The  answer  was  simple:  German 
influence  working  through  Petrograd  before 
the  war  had  been  sufficiently  strong  to  have 
had  these  forts  designed  by  German  engineers. 
I  was  told  on  fairly  good  authority  that  the 
man  who  actually  laid  out  one  of  the  most 
important  forts  on  the  Russian  frontier,  oppo- 
site East  Prussia,  has  in  this  war  been  an  officer 
on  the  staff  of  Von  Hindenburg.  These  are 
but  a  few  concrete  incidents  of  what  German 
influence  has  meant  in  Russia.  The  country 
has  been  overrun  with  spies;  Poland  was 
flooded  with  enemy  agents  who  were  as  eager 
to  serve  Germany  with  information  as  they 
had  been  before  to  supply  Teuton  markets 
with  Russian  orders.  Perhaps  it  is  not 
strange,  then,  that  Russia  to-day  is  looking 
for  a  substitute  for  the  German  trade.  "What 
we  want,"  the  Russians  say,  "is  a  trade  that 
will  supply  us  with  our  wants,  but  that  will 
bring  with  it  no  political  influence."  Nat- 
urally and  logically,  then,  the  eyes  of  intelli- 

161 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

gent  business  men  have  been  looking  toward 
America  to  step  into  the  breach  and  fill  the 
gaps  in  trade  which  the  cessation  of  relations 
with  Germany  has  created.  "We  are  de- 
termined to  rid  ourselves  of  this  influence," 
Serge  Sazonov,  the  Imperial  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs  in  Petrograd,  has  said  to  me 
ten  times  if  he  has  said  it  once:  'Why  arc 
you  Americans  doing  nothing  to  take  advan- 
tage of  this  extraordinary  condition  in  the 
Russian  market?  Russia  wants  American 
trade,  and  anything  which  the  government  can 
do  legitimately  to  encourage  this  trade  will 
be  done  and  gladly."  This,  then,  is  the  situ- 
uation  in  Russia  of  a  market  which  includes 
the  manufactured  wants  to  a  large  extent  of 
170,000,000,  with  a  government  eager  and 
anxious  to  welcome  Americans  and  American 
trade.  What  have  Americans  done  to  take 
advantage  of  this  situation  to  date?  Prac- 
tically nothing  other  than  send  over  agents 
who  have  landed  in  regiments  with  one  idea, 

162 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

and  that  how  to  make  a  million  in  a  week  by 
selling  war  material  at  fabulous  sums. 

The  first  step  in  trade  relations  with  Russia, 
as  must  be  clear  to  all  who  have  given  the 
matter  any  thought,  is  a  new  trade  treaty 
with  Russia  which  should  be  negotiated  at 
once.  As  will  probably  be  remembered  by 
most  Americans,  the  old  treaty  with  Russia 
was  abrogated  on  account  of  the  complaints 
of  the  Jews  that  they  did  not  receive  equality 
of  rights  with  other  America  u  citizens  when 
travelling  in  Russia.  The  question  of  the 
Jews  is  a  delicate  one  to  handle,  but  the  Rus- 
sian treatment  of  the  Jews  in  this  war  has 
been,  all  things  considered,  extremely  lenient, 
and  many  measures  looking  toward  the  allevi- 
ation of  the  conditions  of  the  Jews  in  Russia 
are  under  way.  When  I  say  that  the  Russian 
treatment  of  the  Jews  has  been  lenient  in  this 
war  I  am  quite  well  aware  that  I  shall  be  con- 
tradicted vehemently  by  many  persons,  for 
certainly  the  German  press  agents  have  not 

163 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

been  slow  to  capitalize  Jewish  sentiment  by 
piling  up  stories  of  alleged  Jewish  atrocities. 
I  cannot,  of  course,  prove  a  negative  and  state 
that  there  have  been  no  excesses  in  regard  to 
the  Hebrews,  but  I  can  say  this:  that  I  have 
been,  as  correspondent  of  the  London  Times, 
with  instructions  to  look  out  for  this  very 
aspect,  in  the  theatre  of  operations  from 
October,  1914,  to  November  1,  1915,  and  in 
all  of  this  time  I  have  seen  nothing  to  warrant 
any  statements  of  wide-spread  Russian  cruelty 
to  the  Jews,  nor  have  I  received  any  evidence 
from  any  credible  source  to  establish  the  truth  of 
any  such  story.  During  these  months  I  suppose 
that  I  have  been  in  not  less  than  1,000  villages 
in  Russia  covering  country  all  the  way  from 
the  Bukowina  to  the  Baltic,  and  barring  the 
expulsion  of  Jews  from  the  war  zone  I  have 
seen  nothing  whatever  that  can  be  considered 
as  an  outrage  on  the  Jews.  The  expulsion 
of  the  Jews  from  the  theatre  of  operations 
was  undoubtedly  a  hardship,  but  considering 

164 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

the  fact  that  at  a  later  period  Russians,  Poles, 
and  all  of  the  rest  of  the  population  to  a  total 
aggregating  13,000,000  was  expelled  by  the 
order  of  the  Russians,  this  hardship  cannot  be 
considered  as  falling  particularly  upon  the 
Jews.  I  think  it  safe  to  say  that  the  major 
portion  of  the  Jews  in  Poland  were  pro-German 
in  their  sympathies,  and  that  the  greater 
portion  of  spies  in  Poland  proved  guilty  were 
Jews.  Yet  there  has  been  at  no  time  during 
the  war  in  Russia  any,  save  possibly  isolated 
cases  of  which  I  have  no  information,  perse- 
cution of  the  Jews.  On  the  contrary,  at  a 
time  when  suspicions  are  most  widely  spread, 
the  government  has  shown  its  desire  to  render 
the  conditions  of  the  Jews  in  Russia  better 
than  ever  before.  Hebrews  in  America  who 
really  wish  to  help  the  lot  of  their  race  in 
Russia  can  do  much  more  by  encouraging 
American  trade  relations  and  American  in- 
fluence in  Russia  at  a  time  when  Russia  is 
looking  with  liberal  eyes  upon  many  aspects 

165 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

of  western  life,  than  by  taking  up  the  cause 
of  a  few  individuals  who  have  had  passport 
troubles  in  Russia. 

The  question  has  been  raised  by  many  as  to 
whether  or  not  the  Germans  would  not  be 
back  in  the  Russian  market  the  moment  the 
war  was  over,  and  if  with  their  cheap  goods 
they  would  not  at  once  destroy  American 
enterprise.  This  I  think  will  not  happen.  In 
the  first  place,  there  are  many  American  lines 
that  can  beat  the  German  under  any  condi- 
tions in  the  Russian  market.  The  Interna- 
tional Harvester  Company  is  one  example  and 
the  Singer  Sewing  Machine  Company  is  an- 
other. Both  of  these  concerns  went  to  Russia 
and  taught  the  Russian  peasants  to  use  com- 
modities that  they  had  never  before  heard 
of.  In  other  words,  they  created  a  market 
and  then  built  plants  to  handle  the  demand  in 
Russia.  The  Singer  Sewing  Machine  Com- 
pany has  a  factory  near  Moscow  that  em- 
ploys more  than  5,000  men,  while  its  products 

166 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

are  to  be  seen  in  every  quarter  of  Russia. 
I  think  I  have  never  seen  on  the  roads  from 
the  front  a  party  of  refugees  fleeing  before 
the  Germans  where  there  was  not  at  least  one 
Singer  sewing  machine  in  the  cart  of  family 
treasures.  This  I  quote  to  show  that  even 
under  the  old  conditions,  when  German  trade 
and  German  influence  were  at  their  zenith, 
intelligent  American  effort  had  a  chance.  But 
now  aside  from  these  lines  I  believe  that  Amer- 
ican trade  will  not  for  years  be  seriously 
pushed  by  the  Germans  in  Russia,  for  the 
reason  that  the  Germans  will  not  be  able  in 
the  near  future  to  make  trade  in  the  way  that 
enabled  them  before  to  secure  the  Russian 
market. 

The  reason  that  Germany  was  able  to  cap- 
ture the  Russian  trade,  and  for  that  matter  the 
South  American  and  Far  Eastern  markets  as 
well,  was  because  she  has  been  able  to  offer 
credits  for  long  times,  often  up  to  and  even 
beyond  a  year  in  length,  and,  secondly,  be- 

167 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

cause  she  has  been  able  to  flood  the  market 
on  this  basis  with  extremely  cheap  goods  in 
enormous  volume.  When  this  war  is  finished 
Germany  will  not  have  the  financial  back  to 
offer  anybody  long  lines  of  credit.  After 
eighteen  months'  close  observation  of  the  Ger- 
man campaign  in  the  east  I  am  absolutely 
certain  that  she  has  long  since  lost  the  chance 
to  win  on  a  scale  which  would  give  her  any 
indemnity  from  any  quarter,  which  means 
that  any  success  she  might  get  would  be  with- 
out financial  returns  on  a  scale  that  would 
begin  to  pay  for  the  war,  much  less  help  her 
refinance  her  lost  trade.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
I  think  that  Germany  has  now  lost  even  the 
chance  to  get  a  stalemate,  and  that  with  each 
month  of  the  war  her  probability  of  defeat 
increases.  However,  that  is  not  a  subject  for 
discussion  here.  I  think  it  fair  to  assume, 
however,  that  her  opportunity  to  finance  her 
trade  with  long-time  credits  is  gone,  and  her 
first  great  trade  asset  thus  eliminated  for  at 

168 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

least  a  decade.  Let  us  next  consider  her  sec- 
ond great  advantage  in  capturing  the  Russian 
market — namely,  her  capacity  to  offer  cheap 
goods  in  large  volume.  This  I  think  she  has 
also  lost.  In  the  first  place,  two  very  impor- 
tant aspects  of  cheapness  in  production  in 
Germany  have  been  volume  of  production 
and  skilled  labor.  When  the  war  is  over  the 
German  trade  with  Russia  will  be  approxi- 
mately at  zero.  If  she  is  to  make  low  prices 
she  must  produce  on  a  large  scale,  but  this 
will  be  impossible  because  the  market  for  the 
moment  is  gone.  It  would,  of  course,  be  possi- 
ble to  run  stock  against  the  day  when  these 
markets  were  won  back,  but  this,  too,  would 
necessitate  a  huge  capital  for  carrying  charges, 
a  capital  which  Germany  will  not  have  avail- 
able. It  is  certain,  then,  that  when  she  begins 
to  turn  her  industrial  engines  again  she  will  do 
so  at  first  on  a  small  scale  at  an  increased  cost 
of  production.  Another  important  item  to 
be  considered  in  production  is  skilled  labor. 

169 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  call  attention  to  the 
enormous  losses  in  nearly  every  line  of  skilled 
labor,  save  only  munition  makers,  that  Ger- 
many has  suffered.  With  each  month  of  the 
war  she  is  losing  increasingly  types  of  men 
that  she  cannot  for  a  generation  duplicate. 
Her  first  line  troops  had  not  yet  come  on  to  the 
industrial  market,  and  though  a  potential 
asset  were  not  yet  digested  into  her  system  of 
manufacture  and  distribution.  The  new  for- 
mations which  she  is  now  sacrificing  so  freely 
are  the  very  red  blood  of  German  industrial 
life.  It  is  largely  by  and  through  them  that 
she  might  regain  her  trade  and  her  prosperity, 
but  verily  she  is  slowly  but  surely  killing  all 
of  her  geese  that  lay  the  golden  eggs  of  trade 
and  industry  in  her  empire.  With  no  credit, 
with  her  skilled  labor  largely  buried  in  foreign 
battlefields,  and  with  her  capacity  to  produce 
in  large  volume  gone,  we  see  Germany  at  the 
end  of  this  war  stripped  of  her  greatest  aids 
to  foreign  trade.     For  these  reasons  it  seems 

170 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

more  than  likely  that  Americans  in  Russia 
will  have  at  least  a  decade  to  work  into  these 
markets  before  Germany  is  in  a  condition  to 
seriously  compete. 

Pascal,  the  French  philosopher,  once  said: 
"To  govern  is  to  foresee."  It  is  true  of  trade. 
If  Americans  wish  to  dominate  in  trade  they 
must  foresee  to-day.  Russia,  the  empire  of 
opportunity,  lies  ready  and  waiting.  Are 
there  none  in  America  with  vision  and  fore- 
sight enough  to  see,  above  the  smoke  of  burst- 
ing shells  and  burning  villages,  the  great  per- 
manent market  that  lies  between  the  Baltic  and 
the  Pacific,  a  market  worth  billions?  If  so 
the  time  is  now. 


171 


XVIII 

GENERAL  ALEXIEFF 

Imperial  Headquarters,  Russia, 

October  17th,  1915. 

One  of  the  big  characters  of  the  great  war 
is  the  new  Chief -of -Staff  of  the  Russian  Army, 
who,  under  the  Czar  himself,  is  the  supreme 
commander  of  the  Russian  might.  Alexieff, 
who  should  not  be  confused,  as  he  has  been 
in  a  number  of  the  English  and  French  papers, 
with  Admiral  Alexieff  of  Manchuria  fame,  is 
one  of  the  most  unique  characters  that  I  have 
ever  met.  He  is  a  man  of  about  fifty-eight 
years,  whose  sole  interest  in  life  from  boyhood 
has  been  the  profession  of  soldiering.  He  has 
no  recreations  save  work,  and  he  lives  prac- 
tically twenty-four  hours  of  the  day  for  the 
single  purpose  of  winning  this  war.     I  have 

172 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

met  many  generals  in  this  and  other  wars,  but 
can  say  without  reservation  that  Alexieff 
is  the  hardest  worker  that  I  have  ever  known 
either  in  the  military  or  any  other  profession. 
He  rises  at  7:00  every  morning  from  the  little 
camp  cot  that  is  in  his  office,  and  works  with- 
out intermission  until  1:15,  when  he  walks  or 
motors  to  the  club  where  the  staff  lunches  at 
1:30.  He  leaves  here  not  later  than  2:30  and 
works  the  entire  afternoon  until  7:30,  when  he 
dines  with  his  staff.  After  dinner  he  walks  for 
one  hour  and  then  takes  up  the  unfinished 
business  of  the  day,  which  never  is  completed 
before  midnight  and  often  takes  him  until 
two  or  three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  He  is  a 
man  of  absolute  simplicity  and  without  any 
frills  whatever.  He  is  so  quiet  that  his  reserve 
borders  on  shyness.  He  speaks  only  Russian, 
and  from  observing  him  at  table  twice  a  day 
for  nearly  two  weeks  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
he  speaks  very  little  even  of  that  except  for 
the   purpose   of   giving   orders.     He   has   no 

173 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

small  talk,  but  this  lack  of  conversation  is 
offset  by  ideas  which  in  the  fewest  possible 
words  are  translated  into  action  at  the  front. 
He  does  nearly  all  of  his  own  work,  and  under 
only  the  Emperor  makes  nearly  all  of  the 
plans.  "Who  are  his  advisers?"  I  asked  one 
of  his  aides.  The  Colonel  laughed  as  he 
replied:  "We  should  call  them  assistants 
rather,"  he  said;  "the  General  does  his  own 
advising."  In  a  word,  the  General  Staff  to-day 
is  as  nearly  a  one-man  executive  enterprise  as 
one  can  well  imagine.  If  one  were  to  venture 
a  criticism  on  Alexieff  it  would  be  that  he 
works  too  hard  and  does  a  hundred  things 
daily  that  men  of  lesser  ability  might  do  for 
him.  He  is  mild  and  low  spoken,  but  with 
that  mysterious  air  of  authority  and  character 
about  him  which  brings  quicker  action  from 
a  well-modulated  sentence  from  him  than  a 
torrent  of  boisterous  language  from  most  men. 
The  best  evidence  of  his  capacity  is  the  com- 
ment one  hears  well-nigh  universally  in  every 

174 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

army:  "Ah,  yes,  Alexieff!  The  best  brain 
in  the  Russian  Army."  When  His  Majesty 
the  Czar  took  command  it  was  expected  that 
his  Chief-of-Staff  would  dine  and  lunch  with 
him,  as  had  been  the  case  with  the  previous 
regime — that  is,  the  Grand  Duke  and  his 
chief-of-staff.  Alexieff  is  said  to  have  replied 
bluntly  to  the  suggestion:  "I  am  a  soldier, 
Your  Majesty,  and  not  a  courtier.  It  will 
save  my  time  if  I  dine  with  the  staff  and  give 
my  every  thought  to  the  conduct  of  the  war." 
So  as  it  stands  now  the  Emperor  spends  two 
hours  daily  with  his  Chief-of-Staff  conferring 
and  advising  with  him  on  the  military  situa- 
tion, while  Alexieff  has  the  rest  of  the  day  to 
do  his  work  unmolested.  He  is  an  extremely 
inaccessible  man,  not  because  he  is  unwilling 
to  meet  people,  but  because  he  begrudges 
every  minute  that  is  not  spent  productively, 
and  the  mere  idea  of  a  casual  interview  with 
him  is  utterly  repulsive  to  him.  If  one  has 
tangible  and  definite  business  with  him  on 

175 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

matters  pertaining  to  the  war  or  military 
situation  he  can  be  seen  instantly.  If  not, 
one  may  wait  for  weeks  without  seeing  him 
at  all.  What  impresses  one  most,  I  think, 
in  watching  him  among  his  generals  is  the 
awe  his  simple  and  modest  personality  in- 
spires in  all  about  him.  Probably  he  himself 
does  not  in  the  least  notice  it,  for  he  impresses 
me  as  the  least  self-conscious  individual  I 
have  ever  seen.  The  moment  he  enters  the 
room  an  absolute  hush  falls  on  everybody, 
and  generals  as  well  as  younger  officers  stand 
aside  like  orderlies  before  him. 

Probably  no  general  in  this  war  does  more  in 
the  way  of  actual  direction  than  does  Alexieff . 
Time  and  again  when  situations  at  the  front 
become  critical  he  reaches  over  the  heads  of 
group  and  army  commanders  and  directs  the 
tactics  of  individual  corps  in  person.  During 
the  retreat  from  Warsaw,  when  I  was  many 
times  at  his  staff  at  Sedlice,  he  personally 
supervised  innumerable  details  of  the  great 

176 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

retreat,  which  up  to  that  time  was  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  bits  of  defensive  strategy  which 
history  affords.  During  those  chaotic  weeks, 
when  I  was  in  practically  all  of  these  armies, 
I  discovered  again  and  again  that  Alexieff 
himself  was  guiding  the  movements  of  even 
army  corps.  At  this  time,  when  he  had  under 
him  nine  armies,  he  was  still  able  to  take  the 
time  to  watch  every  detail  himself,  and  yet  was 
not  too  busy  to  do  other  things  as  well.  Three 
or  four  days  before  Warsaw  was  given  up  I 
arrived  at  Sedlice,  with  my  motor  running  on 
its  rims  for  lack  of  tires.  I  met  Alexieff  on  the 
street  and  explained  to  him  my  difficulties. 
In  spite  of  the  pressure  of  the  moment  he 
stopped  where  he  was,  called  up  several 
officers,  and  did  not  return  to  his  work  until 
arrangements  had  been  made  for  me  to  have 
new  tires  and  benzine  to  carry  me  on  my  way. 
Nothing  ruffles  or  discomposes  him,  and  he 
seems  to  find  time  to  do  everything.  Probably 
the  most  brilliant  work  that  Alexieff  has  done 

177 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

has  been  the  retreat  of  the  Tenth  Army  from 
Vilna.  I  think  that  when  the  details  of 
this  movement  are  known  Alexieff  will  be 
given  a  niche  in  the  military  Hall  of  Fame 
even  if  he  never  achieves  anything  else  in 
this  war.  It  is  now  well  known  that  this  army 
was  enveloped  on  three  sides  and  practically 
cut  off  from  its  neighbors,  with  the  only 
avenue  of  retreat  an  extremely  poor  road. 
Pressed  on  all  sides  with  superior  numbers, 
its  fate  seemed  desperate.  It  was  feared 
that  at  last  the  Germans  would  complete  one 
of  their  so  often  planned  enveloping  move- 
ments. In  this  crisis,  when  all  Petrograd  was 
already  gossiping  over  the  anticipated  disaster, 
the  Chief-of-Staff  reached  into  the  situation 
and  from  his  little  office  directed  every  detail 
of  the  movement  for  the  ten  days  that  the 
army  was  getting  out,  which  it  did,  as  I  am 
assured,  without  the  loss  of  a  single  gun. 
The    repetition    again    and    again    of    these 

strokes  of  Alexieff  have  given  him   a  great 

178 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

reputation  in  the  army  and  enormously  in- 
creased the  morale  of  the  troops  and  officers 
serving  under  him,  and  have,  I  dare  say, 
inspired  the  Germans  with  a  wholesome  re- 
spect for  his  ability. 

The  General  is  a  man  who  has  risen  to  his 
exalted  position  sheerly  through  merit  and 
nothing  else.  In  the  Manchuria  campaign 
he  reached  the  rank  of  Major-General  and 
served  with  distinction  as  Quartermaster- 
General  of  the  Third  Army.  After  the  war 
he  was  Chief-of-Staff  of  the  Thirteenth 
Corps  at  Kiev,  and  later  was  professor  and 
lecturer  on  strategy,  tactics,  and  administra- 
tion in  the  military  college.  On  the  outbreak 
of  the  war  he  became  the  Chief-of-Staff  of  the 
armies  of  Ivanov,  and  the  records  of  the 
early  months  of  the  Galician  campaign  are 
evidence  that  he  did  not  fail  in  his  duties 
there.  On  March  17,  1915,  he  was  placed  in 
command  of  the  Polish  front,  taking  the  place 
left    by    Ruszky,    whose    ill    health    necessi- 

179 


VICTORY  IN  DEFEAT 

tated  an  interval  of  rest.  Alexieff  and  his 
Chief-of-Staff,  Goulevitch,  from  Sedlice  di- 
rected the  Warsaw  movement,  as  is  known. 
Army  after  army  was  transferred  to  the 
Alexieff  group,  until  he  had  nine  under  his 
command,  which  became  such  a  burden  that 
the  Northern  Group  was  formed  to  relieve 
the  intense  pressure.  Shortly  after  this  the 
Emperor  took  supreme  command,  and  at  once 
Alexieff  was  made  his  Chief-of-Staff.  We 
have  already  seen  what  he  has  been  able  to 
do  in  conducting  a  retreat,  and  if  his  Galician 
career  is  any  criterion,  we  may  hope  for 
equally  good  results  when  the  situation  jus- 
tifies the  commencement  of  a  general  offensive. 


THE    END 


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